The Wraeththu Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

Never had I felt so out of place. I should not be there. Another's place, not mine.
     
    "Hell, I knew I was going to regret that," Seel sighed, smiling ruefully at Cal. He deftly changed the subject, talking with wit and vigor. Saltrock gossip. I did not really hear him and neither, I think, did Cal. Zack. I had a feeling he was the one who ended up as raw meat.
     
    Flick brought us food. I was hungry but still shy and only nibbled at what was offered; chunks of meat cooked in herbs, and baked potatoes. Hot, melted butter spiced with garlic dripped over them. I regretted my throat was closed. Seel kept glancing at me. "Flick, go talk with Pell," he said, after a while, and turned back to Cal. Flick threw himself into the cushions beside me. He was dressed in ripped jeans and a tattered T-shirt and looked absurdly graceful. He regarded first my mussed plate and then my flushed face.
     
    "Finish your wine. Come with me," he whispered. "You need some air."
     
    The wine hit my stomach like hot ashes. The room lurched as I stood up and I bumped into things as I followed him across the room. I was grateful to get out although I was convinced Cal would start talking about me as soon as I was gone. Half-drunk, I could not be sure if I was really there. Maybe it was a dream and we were still in the desert. Soon I would wake and Cal would be staring at the stars, dead people in his eyes.
     
    Flick steadied me and led me out into the open air. We were in a kind of courtyard. Low buildings shambled around its edge and the air stung my tongue anew with the faint acridity of soda. Above us the sky was rich, dark blue, vividly studded with stars. The eyes of the dead. Raw meat. Dreams.
     
    To my left the roofs of the buildings were touched with a weak luminescence that rose from the lake. An underground, sulphurous light. My chest was tight with painful, intoxicated misery. Flick hovered like a phantom, watching. I sat down heavily on the sandy ground. I could not contain it. Like a burst abscess my fear and discomfort spurted out of me. I wept and wept, hearing my sobs echo like the cries of a child waking from nightmare. I hated this place. The strangeness, the stench, the outlandishness of the people. They are not people. Something else. I was alone. Cal was a stranger, remote and calculating. I had been a fool to go with him. Why had I not thought of what I was getting into? I could never be one of them, never. I did not trust Cal and was terrified of what might happen to me. Raw meat. Into the soda, into the limepits. Curling up as tight as I could, trembling animal howls shuddered out of me. And then, there were arms around me. Then the warmth of another body, a living thing, dream whispers in my hair. No language I had ever heard. Flick, an unlikely comforter, crooning reassurance.
     
    "Come on, come on, get it all out," he urged, as if I was being sick.
     
    Through my tears, I managed a bleak laugh. It was the first time in my life, however, that I had wept and not felt ashamed. Flick asked me what the matter was.
     
    "Scared," I bleated, and all my fears tumbled out, mostly incomprehensible, even to myself. Flick listened patiently, saying nothing, until I had finished.
     
    "Many feel like this at first," he told me. A wistful smile quivered across his face. "You have given up everything you had, everything you knew. It's bound to feel strange. Look at it like this: you come to the world of Wraeththu as naked and helpless as a human baby. You will learn, gradually, just as babies do. Don't expect everything to happen at once. It takes time and there are reasons for that. The Wraeththu are mostly good people. Here at Saltrock they are; you are safe. They will not harm you, especially as you're with Cal."
     
    I thumped the ground angrily with my hand. "Cal!" I spat bitterly. "Safe? With him? He doesn't even live in this world. I hardly know him. My welfare is nothing to him!"
     
    Flick's face was perplexed. He could not