The Wraeththu Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page A

exquisite pixie face. His head was shaved, except for a long black ponytail growing from the top which fell over his shoulder.
     
    "Flick, where's the food? Cal's starving. Get back in the kitchen," Seel ordered with a dismissive wave of his hand. The boy retreated with a shrug.
     
    "Equality, equality," Cal said, rolling his eyes.
     
    "Oh, I know, I know. I'm an ill-humoured bastard who should make a living out of slavery," Seel replied with humor. "If he wants to live here, he works. He's lazy as fuck half the time." He ushered us into one of the rooms. "My nest," he said. We dumped what luggage we were carrying in the hall and followed him in.
     
    "Seel, you Sybarite!" Cal exclaimed with a laugh. Silks and tassels hung everywhere. Lights, suspended from the ceiling in bowls of intricately worked oriental metal, threw out a dim, cozy glow. Perfumes smouldered in corners, exuding a silvery smoke.
     
    "Sit down, sit down," Seel urged impatiently. He tried to hide from us that he was proud of his home and pleased that Cal had admired it. Cautiously, I lowered myself into a heap of black and gold cushions. Protesting, a Siamese cat wriggled from underneath me and shot out through the door. Incense burned behind me with a perfume so strong it made my head ache, although the soda-stink still burned my throat.
     
    "I'll get you some refreshment," Seel told us. Moments later, we could hear him arguing with Flick in the kitchen.
     
    Left alone with Cal, I did not know what to say to him. The last half-hour had passed like a dream. I was dazed. Cal looked awkward.
     
    "Well!" he began, with a pitiful attempt at forced heartiness. "Seel has improved this place since I was last here. He was living in a tent then! What do you think of him?"
     
    He did not look at me when he said it and did not see me shrug helplessly. I was thinking, "Oh God, he's wishing he hadn't brought me here," and decided I knew now why he had never touched me. He had been waiting for Seel. I had a lot to learn.
     
    "Seel's the top dog around here," he said. "This place wouldn't exist if it wasn't for him." He stood up and walked around the room, examining things. "God, it's good to be back!"
     
    Seel came back in clutching a bottle in one hand and three long-stemmed glasses in the other. "Champagne, gentlemen?" he queried.
     
    "Seel, how do you get this stuff?" Cal asked him, impressed.
     
    Seel winked at him. "Treachery, corruption and thievery of course, how else?"
     
    He offered me a glass. I had never even heard of champagne and did not like the taste much. It was very difficult not to keep staring at Seel, but he did not seem to mind. He was dressed mostly in thin, torn leather and had the same build as Cal, sleek and fit, and that same shifting male/female ambience. His olive-skinned face was almost inhumanly symmetrical and the almond-shaped eyes were lined with kohl. Inadequacy swamped me. It was inconceivable I could ever feel equal to Wraeththu strangeness, and, as fear prodded me sharply, I wondered: "How did they become so alien?" Presumably, most, if not all, had come from humble origins like mine once. Something other than human blood coursed through their veins now, I concluded. A thought that proved uncannily perceptive.
     
    "Colt and Stringer might call in later," Seel told Cal. "But if you want to crash out somewhere, that's OK."
     
    Cal rubbed his face. "No. I'd like to see them again. Just kick me if I drop off." The wine had got to him. His eyes were half closed.
     
    Seel looked puzzled about something, as if he had only just thought of it. "Cal?" A careful question.
     
    "What?" Cal suddenly looked defensive.
     
    Seel's eyes flickered over me. "I've a feeling you're going to hate this, but what happened to Zack?" It would have taken more than a knife to cut the atmosphere. I cringed in discomfort.
     
    Cal made a strange, hissing noise through his teeth. "Not now, Seel. Not now," he replied, his voice strained and tired.