'Cal didn't do this to me, Pell,' Caeru murmured. 'You don't have to worry about that.'

Pellaz uttered a low growl. 'I will find who did, I promise you. And when I do, I'll rip their guts from them. I promise you that, as well.'

'We weren't meant to create that pearl,' Caeru said. 'Somehar stopped us.'

'I know,' Pellaz said, 'which means it was more important than even I thought.'

'Who, though? Who would hate us that much?'

'I'm not sure it's hate,' Pellaz said. He let go of Caeru's hand and stood up. 'They should clean you up. It's not right. They should clean your hands and your hair.'

'Show me the damage,' Caeru said. 'I have to see. I had to wait for you to come before I could bear to look at it.'

Pellaz paused for a few moments, then leaned down and drew back the sheet. Caeru raised himself up on his elbows and looked down at his belly. Through the narrow bars of the protective cage, the wounds looked better than they had: a strange map of st.i.tches and black crusts. His stomach appeared sunken, as if a great part of himself had been hacked away.

Caeru lay down again. 'If you had not been here, I would have left this life,' he said.

'I know,' Pellaz said. 'I wouldn't let you go.'

'Why? You don't love me. We are not chesna. You could have been free.'

'I will go to Galhea,' Pellaz said, 'and I'll take Terez with me. There is work to do. When I return, I will visit you. Be home by then, Rue. I hope to bring you news at that time.'

'Why?' Caeru insisted, ignoring all that Pellaz had just said.

'I didn't want you to die,' Pellaz said. 'Make of that what you will. I can offer no more.'

'Thank you,' Caeru said. 'I will help you, Pell, whatever happens.'

Pellaz nodded thoughtfully. 'I'll have them clean you up,' he said. 'I'll send Vaysh to you. He can sit with you.'

'Vaysh,' Caeru said dully. 'Is that because I'm like him now? Barren? Is he going to talk to me about that, try and make me adjust?' He laughed bleakly.

'No,' Pellaz replied. 'It's because Vaysh is trained to protect a har, which is more than can be said for our so-called security staff. But that is not your concern. Just get well again.'

Chapter Eight.

Calanthe har Aralis came to his senses in darkness. He sat up. He could hear his own breath, and from the way it echoed sensed he was in an enormous building or cave. He could see nothing. Puzzling thoughts flashed through his mind. They will travel to the city of winds and ghosts. There are jewels there, amid the rubbish.

Before he'd woken, he'd seen his son Tyson, so like himself. He had seen Pellaz, too bright to look upon, like a white hot flame.

Where am I?

He almost laughed aloud at the cliched question. What could he remember? A meal in a restaurant in Immanion. Low tide, the reek of sea weed, the smell of fish simmering in spices, tart wine. He could not see the face of the one who sat opposite him. He could hear a voice, but not the words. He could remember a feeling of relief, of unburdening himself, feeling he'd been understood. He remembered things making sense, like a door opening on a room he thought he'd never find. After that, a blank. He must have been drugged, knocked out, but there was no pain in his head, no sense of sluggishness. He had no idea what had happened to him and yet felt emotionally numb. He could not be afraid. It was like a dream.

And then, a pinp.r.i.c.k of light in the immense darkness ahead of him. It zoomed towards him, growing in size, until it bobbed in front of him, a sphere of radiance the size of his head.

'Am I dreaming?' Cal said to this phenomenon.

The sphere pulsed a little, as if it were breathing. Cal heard a voice in his head. No more than any other har, Calanthe.

'What is this place? Why am I here?'

It is a hidden palace, at the end of a lonely back road of the otherlanes. You are here to be of use to your kind, for there is none other like you. You will remember soon the conversation that took place in Immanion, and the agent who persuaded you to come here. The journey was made without sedim. It has disorientated you, but this will fade.

'Who or what are you?'

I am Perdu.

Cal thought this name should be familiar, but couldn't remember why. 'What are you?'

Living essence, as you are.

'Then manifest. I will not talk to a ball of light.'

The sphere contracted until it was blazing mote of brilliance, then exploded with a dazzling display of sparks. Cal shielded his eyes for a moment, sure that sizzling particles had burned his face. He could smell cordite. Light had come into the s.p.a.ce he occupied, light which illumined rather than concealed. He saw an almost unimaginably huge chamber, like a temple, its domed roof veined with organic struts and beams. He saw a floor of what looked like polished obsidian. Standing upon it in rows were bowls of radiance on tripods seven feet tall. Beyond them, ranks of tall pillars disappearing into the distance, like the reflections in multiple mirrors. At last, his reluctant consciousness focused on the tall figure before him. He was wary now, knowing what he'd see: the slanting catlike eyes, the mane of blood red hair. Thiede. 'Am I dead?' Cal said. 'Is this your revenge?'

Thiede concealed his hands in the wide sleeves of his indigo colored robe. 'We cannot die that easily. You already know that, I believe.'

Cal got to his feet. 'I have sensed you, Thiede. Often. What I mean is, now I'm here, can I ever go back?'

Thiede smiled. 'Yes. I do not seek revenge. There is nothing to warrant it.'

'Then why have you brought me here? To get me away from Pell again? I suppose that's it.'

Thiede shook his head. 'Not at all. You are here to finish what was started, what the Kamagrian started for you.'

'Which is?'

'To become Tigron, worthy of the t.i.tle.'

'Is Opalexian part of this?'

'In some regard. We were so wrong, Opalexian and I. But we are learning, as you will. I needed to bring you here, because I cannot manifest in your realm. This is not just because you banished me, Cal. It was expedient for others that I was removed. Part of a greater plan, of which I was entirely ignorant. If I return to Immanion, there is a strong chance that my presence would be sensed and I would be destroyed, utterly, my essence erased from s.p.a.ce and time. Opalexian knows this now too. She hides, she fears. They could come for her also, in the guise of an a.s.sa.s.sin or a liberator. Who knows?'

'What are you talking about? Be clear with me.'

'Wraeththu is under threat,' Thiede said. 'Grave threat.'

'From what?'

'From the enemies of those who made us.'

'Who made us?'

Thiede smiled again. 'The G.o.ds,' he said. 'As everyhar believes.'

'I don't. I think the answer is more prosaic than that.'

'We have much to discuss,' Thiede said. 'I will show you my realm, my humble home. You are safe here, as your son will be.'

'Tyson, I saw him. Is he in danger?'

'Not Tyson, Cal. The one as yet in pearl. I want you to go into the otherlanes and save him. You must do this very soon, almost at once.'

'What!'

'An enemy has cut the child from Caeru's belly. It intends to deliver the harling to a foul master, who will devour it. You must intercept this agent very soon, and it will be difficult for you, because I cannot provide you with a sedu.'

'That is impossible, not difficult.'

'Not at all. I can teach you how to do this, now. But there are dangers.'

'Why can't you do it?'

'Because I cannot risk making my presence felt in the ethers. I need you, Cal, we all need you. I know you have an inkling of what might have been. You were sent to Immanion before you were ready. We did not need to fight. I never needed to fight you.'

'It was torture, not fighting.'

'Yes. I tortured you. I saw in you the thing I feared, but now I realise you are the sword to combat the source of that fear. It was inevitable you should share its taste and flavor. When I chose Pellaz, a higher power chose you to be his protector. My mistake was that I did not see it. I should have brought you to Immanion the moment Pellaz died. You should have been there from the beginning with Seel and the others. Imagine a world where that happened, Cal. Imagine it carefully.'

Cal grimaced. 'I don't want to. Because it didn't happen. You can't change the past.'

'No, none of us can do that. You have been through fire, Cal. You are the strongest blade, forged in madness and hatred, refined through trial and experience. You walked through the fire, and emerged from it, relatively intact. Hara do not realise what you are, what you've achieved.' Thiede paused. 'Enough of this flattery. There is work to do. Your son....'

'What of Caeru?'

'He lives,' Thiede said. 'If I'd acted more swiftly, I could have prevented what happened to him, but the information came too late. You cannot concern yourself with him. Devote yourself entirely to taking the pearl from the one who stole it. Remember how you felt as you came to my inner sanctum on the night we fought in Immanion. That is how you must be now.'

'Does Pell know I'm here?'

'No, for the time being his safest course is to remain in ignorance.'

'He will think...'

'We both know what he will think. Do not dwell upon it. Focus upon what must be done now.'

'And if I succeed in this task, what next?'

Thiede gestured languidly. 'You finish the training Opalexian started for you. You learn how to be of use when the time comes and mighty forces reveal themselves in the realm of earth. Wraeththu have always believed themselves to be the stuff of angels, haven't they? Well, consider this. The fall from heaven never ended, Cal. The battle continues. But what we have to consider, as lowly beings, is whether light is good and dark is evil. Always a puzzle, eh?'

'The war of angels.' Cal laughed. 'What are you saying?'

'That sometimes truth can be wrapped up in a myth or a fairy story. You will learn.'

Cal considered. 'This feels right,' he said, certain. 'I am right to be here.'

Thiede smiled. 'I am glad to hear it. It is strange, but of all hara you probably have the most reason to loathe me, yet you do not. I have never sensed hate in you, not like in Seel Griselming, for example.'

'I'm happy to adore whatever Seel hates,' Cal said.

Thiede regarded him wryly. 'You should get over that. It could be used against you.'

Cal gestured emphatically with both hands. 'All the time I've been in Immanion, I've yearned for something, felt there was something I should be doing. Is this it?'

'I hope so.'

'I thought you'd be sure.'

'We should never be that. I made that mistake once too often.'

'I am ready,' Cal said. 'Show me.'

Calanthe har Aralis had disappeared from Immanion and nearly everyhar in the city had their own thoughts on that. Phaonica had tried to keep private the details of the attack on Caeru, but they leaked out anyway. Some thought that Cal had been killed, his body hidden. Others believed he had reverted to type and had attacked Caeru in a moment of insanity, before fleeing the city, in the same way he'd once fled Saltrock after murdering the shaman, Orien Farnell. The ability to kill was in his blood, after all: tainted Uigenna blood.

Nohar had thought the Aralisians could be so vulnerable in their own home, which was why security had been relatively lax. This was amended immediately, and investigations ensued into who or what had perpetrated the attack. There were no clues. Nothing unusual had been noticed that night and nohar knew from where the message summoning Caeru's staff to a fake meeting had come, other than that it had been composed on Security Office stationery. It all pointed to an inside job, and every member of the palace staff was subjected to rigorous interrogation.

While this was being conducted, Davitri Bila.s.so directed his best psychic agents to search for Cal's signature in the otherlanes, but there was no trail to follow. Trackers scoured the countryside, and spies slid like oil through the back streets of surrounding towns and villages, seeking clues. Nohar found anything. It was as if Cal had disappeared completely, as if he'd never been in Immanion. Did this signify guilt or something else?

Pellaz didn't know what he thought. As far as the issue of Cal was concerned, he was emotionally numb and could think in terms only of solving the mystery, of revealing the threat that hung over his family. He mourned the loss of the pearl, far more deeply than he thought was possible. It had represented so much, and its conception was an event that could never be replicated. The dream had shattered. He told himself he'd been right all along. His relationship with Cal had ended in a soup of mud and blood somewhere in Megalithica over thirty years ago. Everything since had been a fantasy, a wish, a delusion. They were not meant to find happiness together. Several times, Pellaz had attempted to establish mind contact with Cal, but there was no hint of his presence in the world. It was as if he had never even existed.

Pellaz summoned his brother Terez and together they rode out of Phaonica's stableyard on powerful white sedim. Halfway down the palace drive, they opened a portal to the otherlanes and flashed out of earthly reality, leaving behind them only a lingering rumble of thunder and a smell of ozone. Nohar who witnessed that departure was in any doubt that the Tigron was in the mood for a fight.

Chapter Nine.

It was evening in Galhea when the sedim leapt back into the world, out of a thundercloud and a ring of lightning. They crashed down onto a road outside the town and without pause galloped directly towards the house called We Dwell in Forever, with ice flying from their manes and steam purling from their necks.

Prior to this arrival, and ignorant of its advent, Tyson Parasiel had experienced a presentiment. Tyson was not a har naturally given to psychic episodes. He, like his hostling before him, had mostly neglected spiritual training and lived very much in the world of the empirical senses. He'd gone to lie down on his bed, late in the afternoon, because he'd spent most of the previous night getting drunk with friends, and Swift, his half brother, had made him work all day. He'd antic.i.p.ated being able to get an early night to recover but Cobweb had told him there would be guests for dinner and that he must be present. Tyson, stiff-necked with dread, knew he'd have to catch a few hours sleep before enduring the company of others. He rarely felt comfortable with any hara but those who were his friends among the Parsic military and the staff who worked on the family estate. Cobweb would not reveal who the guests would be, but Tyson supposed they would be Gelaming and probably from Immanion.

News of the attack on Caeru and of Cal's disappearance had already been sent to Galhea. No doubt the Gelaming believed Cal would flee back to Forever, as he had done many years before, after his murder of Orien Farnell in Saltrock. Cynically, Tyson knew this was most unlikely. However much Cal might be redeemed and repaired, Tyson knew his hostling wanted to avoid him. As a harling, he'd harbored romantic notions about Cal, and had envied his adventurous life, but as an adult, he guessed that Cal was mostly like himself and somewhat scornful of cozy domestic arrangements. He wasn't resentful that his hostling ignored him. He had no interest in meeting Cal now, because in some ways he didn't want to shatter the illusions of childhood and he was wise enough to realise his early fantasies could not have been based on reality.

He'd once dreamed of roaming the world with Cal, having all sorts of wild and improbable experiences, and sometimes, even now, that old restlessness stole over him, but for the most part he was content to feed off Swift's generosity and live the life of a rich har in luxury. He had a chesnari of sorts, a har called Ferany, who lived in the town. Tyson knew that Ferany believed that one day he and Tyson would take the bond of blood and then Ferany would move into Forever and a series of harlings would follow. Tyson allowed Ferany to persist with this dream unmolested. He still wasn't sure himself whether it would ever come to pa.s.s or not. What else was there to do? There had been talk recently of Tyson going to Immanion, but he'd not been enthusiastic about the idea. If he'd been younger, then maybe. All he'd been able to envision was being a rustic har from the sticks who wouldn't fit in, and whose reluctant hostling would regard him with distant expressions of pain.

However, recent developments had effectively closed that avenue of possibility, so a life with Ferany appeared ever more likely, however mundane. Ferany was an exotic har, who was unusual because he veered neither towards masculine or feminine aspect, as most Galhean hara tended to do, however good their intentions to be utterly balanced. This was undoubtedly a remnant of being Varrs, as the Parsics had been known when Tyson's father Terzian was alive and intent on conquest. Terzian had actively suppressed his feminine side, yet had encouraged it in others, such as Cobweb, who had hosted harlings. It might also be because Galhea had a human community, one time slaves, now free citizens, who lived in their own areas, but whose separate genders perhaps subtly influenced the way hara lived. Ferany, a more modern creature, was truly androgynous and Tyson knew that some of the human residents of Galhea found him creepy because of that. It was perhaps what all hara were supposed to be like and what the Galheans considered to be freakish might simply be a vision of the future. Ferany did not approve of some of Tyson's excesses, but held his tongue, probably because he cherished being close to the highest-ranking family in the community and who knows he might have harbored ambitions to move to Immanion one day, where the hara were much more like him. He got on very well with Cobweb, which sometimes unsettled Tyson greatly. Tyson loved Cobweb as a hostling, because he'd brought Tyson up when Cal couldn't be bothered with the responsibility of parenting, but Tyson was still wary of Cobweb's inner sight.

As he slept, Tyson dreamed of leaving home. He sailed on a great red ship, over an ocean comprised entirely of shifting black sand. The sand moved like waves, and sprays of granules blew up over the side of the ship, stinging Tyson's hands and face. He gazed towards a distant horizon, where a city of gold hung in the sky. The dream was pleasant, somehow soothing, and Tyson was sorry to be woken from it. Somehar stood at the end of his bed and leaned over to shake one of his feet. 'Tyson, it's time to wake up.'