The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,48

sedu was plunging, as if having taken a high jump, down onto a road in daylight. Seel was freezing cold. His hair was full of ice. The horse’s reins dangled free. His hands were knotted in its mane, frozen into place. He feared his fingers would break like glass if he tried to move them. His vision was obscured, so he could barely take in the landscape around him, but was aware of the smell of the sea and the vague shapes of tall poplars that lined the road.

Thiede pulled his horse to a halt and both Seel’s and Colt’s mounts slid to a stop behind it. Tears of ice streaked Colt’s face. He gathered up the horse’s reins, shaking frost from his long braids. ‘No words,’ he said. ‘None.’

Thiede had turned his horse and now came to Seel’s side. ‘Are you all right?’

Seel managed to nod. ‘So cold.’

‘It can be,’ Thiede said. ‘Now you must admit that has to be the finest of my illusions, eh?’

‘It was… awakening,’ Seel said.

‘Forgive me if I sound smug, then,’ Thiede said, and gestured down the road, which sloped towards the white towers of a city that hugged the coast beyond. ‘Behold Immanion.

It was both an old city and a new one. A crystal blue sea sparkled beneath it, and in the quay, long prowed boats pranced upon the incoming tide. The boats looked both ancient and alien, as if they’d been plucked from the oceans of far worlds. The city itself was like a mixture of Classical and Far Eastern design: pagodas and pillars, domed roofs of gold and flat tiled roofs of red. It was surrounded by high white walls and constructed upon a series of hills. Nowhere did there seem to be any scruffy corners. Long banners flew from towering minarets, emblazoned with the recently designed arms of the high-ranking families. Upon one hill, Thiede pointed out, were the villas of the city’s governors, while along the coast a short way, lay the sprawling barracks complex and training grounds of the Gelaming army. In the centre of the city was the High Nayati, the greatest of temples, and one day, in this place, Thiede intended to crown Pellaz Cevarro as Wraeththu’s king.

Seel could see all this as they rode down to the gates. He had never beheld or imagined a city so beautiful. It was all that Cal could have dreamed it could be. But even from this distance Seel could tell there was no place for hara like Cal in Immanion.

Thiede said he would take them to his villa on the outskirts of the city. Once upon its streets, it was clear a lot of building work was still in progress. Old buildings were being torn down and others put up in their place. Humans were working alongside hara, perhaps slaves. Almagabra was a beautiful country, but once humans had densely inhabited it. Clearly, the Gelaming had applied themselves to removing evidence of recent human construction, which must not have been as aesthetically pleasing to the eye, or the soul, as Immanion was. From the city, the coastline appeared mainly empty of buildings and towns: a sweeping vista of open land, where sheep grazed in the sunlight. Questions began piling up in Seel’s mind. He must remember them all.

The villa was situated on the crown of the hill where all the prominent Gelaming families lived, and boasted a fine view of the city below. As they rode up the curling drive, Seel caught sight of a huge edifice, half built and surrounded by scaffolding, on another hill in the city centre, near the Nayati. Thiede caught him staring. ‘That will be Pell’s palace,’ he said. ‘Phaonica: a diamond that will shine so bright all the cities of the world will by lit by its radiance.’

Saltrock, in comparison to this, seemed a pathetic experiment. Thiede obviously had far more resources than Seel had had, but then he had elected to build his city right in the middle of what had been human land, rather than hiding away in the wilderness as Seel had done.

‘You are a builder,’ Thiede said, probably having been prying in Seel’s mind. ‘You belong here. You will be able to indulge your dreams to the full.’

Seel could say nothing, because there wasn’t anything to say. If Thiede had been covertly recruiting hara from Saltrock to bring them here, how could it be seen as wrong? Where would they rather be, given the choice? Seel had never