The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure (31 page)

Flick’s guard held him before the fire, but nohar paid them any attention. Flick looked around for Ulaume but could not see him.

Then Wraxilan stepped from the largest tepee and all fell silent but for the hungry crackle of the flames. The Uigenna leader stared across the fire directly into Flick’s eyes and for a moment Flick understood the point of it all. This was so different to anything he’d experienced since inception. He’d never met hara like this. Their raw, savage power skittered like electricity over his skin. They were reputed to be cruel and were clearly barbaric, yet he could not deny that in their pride they possessed a certain primitive nobility. These were the kind of hara who had changed the world. They did not hide in the wilderness, they overran it.

Wraxilan made a gesture and Flick’s guard inclined his head. ‘Lie down for him,’ he said to Flick.

‘What?’

The guard did not repeat the instruction but knocked Flick from his feet by kicking him in the back of the knees. Instinct took over and Flick immediately tried to rise, to run, but other hara, uttering fearsome cries, ran over and knelt on his limbs.

It is only pelki if you see it that way,
Flick thought. He closed his eyes. There was no point in fighting. It would be over sooner if he did not resist.

He could feel Wraxilan’s approach and knew when the Uigenna leader stood over him, because his hot power burned into Flick’s skin.

‘You will be initiated into our ways,’ said Wraxilan. ‘Know this is a privilege and be grateful.’

Flick would not open his eyes. He tried to distance himself, concentrate on his breathing, think of other things. He would not be a victim. He would be remote. He would not acknowledge the pain in his arms and legs where bony knees dug into him.

‘Prepare him,’ said Wraxilan.

The hara who held Flick down got up and virtually tore off his clothes. Flick kept his eyes closed tight. He wouldn’t utter a sound. Hands pulled his legs apart. He thought of the north star, its brilliance and Wraeththu spirits dancing in its light.

He heard Wraxilan’s voice, closer now. ‘Look at me, white ghost.’

He wouldn’t. Wraxilan could do as he wished with his body, but his mind and his eyes were his own.

‘Look at me!’

Flick swallowed with difficulty. He anticipated the blow before it came. He felt his lip split, tasted blood.
I have a choice
, he thought.
I can open my eyes or get beaten up, and the outcome will be the same.
He opened his eyes.

Wraxilan knelt between his legs. ‘That is better, white ghost. Be here, not somewhere else.’

I want to spit on him,
Flick thought, but knew it would only make matters worse. He would look into Wraxilan’s eyes, and he wouldn’t show contempt. He’d show nothing, which would be more insulting.

The Uigenna’s song had changed to a soft haunting mantra. Wraxilan reached out and lightly touched Flick’s broken lip. ‘You were wrong to make me do that. It is not my wish to hurt you.’ He leaned down and kissed the cut, licked the blood away. Flick could feel the rhythm of the drums in the ground beneath him. ‘The Aghama has made me your lord,’ Wraxilan murmured, close to Flick’s ear. ‘With me, you are sacred and what we do is sacred.’

This was not what Flick had expected. Wraxilan’s breath curled into him like smoke. Flick was powerless to prevent it and could not ignore its influence. In the sharing of breath, hara become one, and it is an act of surrender to each other, when innermost thoughts mingle and collide. Performed in this spirit, it can never be an act of violation. Flick saw a high mountain top and eagles soaring. Then he was an eagle himself, riding the currents of air, and another eagle swooped beside him and the tips of their wings were touching.

Don’t let him take me to this place,
Flick prayed.
Aruhani, don’t let this happen. I call upon you now. Don’t.

But Aruhani was the dehar of aruna and Flick had dreamed him into being. He was dancing now to the throb of the drums, his dark braids flying, his skin as black as oil from a hidden kingdom. He had been invoked. Wraxilan would not be violent. He was gentle and that was the greatest cruelty. Betrayed by his body, his own being, Flick lost himself to aruna, and was only partially aware that it was no longer Wraxilan upon him, but another har, then another and another. Each of them were different flavours, different colours, that he could weave together. A shining plait of souls. Flick became like Aruhani, chaotic desire with a necklace of bones, with soume-lam that bled fire.

Ultimately, in a moment of clarity, he found himself looking into Wraxilan’s eyes once more and he thought:
it is in all of us. I am no different from him.

For a few brief seconds, Flick felt he had become Cal. He was wrapped in the familiar sensations of being with Cal, his smell, the subtle emanations of his being. He was Cal, young and naïve, and Wraxilan was inside him.

The world fractured and reality exploded into splinters of light. Flick’s consciousness shot up into the air and he looked down upon himself, heard himself scream. Then he smashed back into his own body and he was gasping for breath, hair across his face.

Wraxilan stood up, staggered backwards. He looked disorientated, as if he’d been beaten. His voice was a raw, ragged gasp. ‘
He
trained you,’ he said.

From the moment that Pellaz Cevarro had set foot in Saltrock, the magic of coincidence had begun to pile up. Flick realised it should come as no surprise that Wraxilan was the har who’d incepted Cal. It would have perhaps been more unusual, given the mounting synchronicities of the past few years, if he hadn’t.

Flick was taken to Wraxilan’s tepee, because of course they now had to talk. Flick realised he had reached a major fork in the path of his life. He could easily become Uigenna now. He could almost predict every forthcoming moment if he made that choice and it would not be a difficult life. Because of Cal, he could have influence with Wraxilan, and probably status too. But then, there was Lileem and Mima, waiting tense and frightened in the cellar of the white house. Flick could sense their thoughts and feelings. He could taste the sour fear in their breath. He knew Mima had felt something happen to him and that she didn’t know what it was and was afraid it might be death. And apart from his concern for his friends, he was sure that his fate did not lie with the Uigenna. He was destined to be more than a concubine of the Lion of Oomar. All of his senses were heightened. He dared not stare in any one place for too long, because otherwise the fabric of reality would break down and he would see what lay beyond the illusion.

Wraxilan reclined on cushions, wrapped in a loose robe of black cloth. Hara waited upon him. One poured wine into goblets from a metal flagon, while another combed out the Lion’s mane. Wraxilan indicated that Flick should sit down before him. Flick realised he too was dressed in a robe and couldn’t remember putting it on. Everything had gone strange.

‘You must tell me,’ Wraxilan said.

‘About Cal,’ Flick said. ‘You knew him, didn’t you.’

‘You could say that. Did he speak of me to you?’

‘No, I just saw it. I saw you incepted him.’

Wraxilan nodded distractedly. ‘From the moment I first laid eyes on you, I must have sensed his presence around you. I didn’t realise it and it was stupid of me. You could have killed me.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Sarocks do not lie, but neither do they realise the truth, it seems. You could. You had my heart in your hand, believe me. You could have torn it out.’

‘That was not me exactly. It was…’ Flick paused. He thought this would be a legendary moment, when he revealed the existence of his gods to somehar new. ‘It was Aruhani. He is a god of aruna, a dehar. I channelled him, accidentally.’

Wraxilan sat up a little straighter. ‘Explain. Is this something Cal taught you?’

‘No. It is what I have learned away from my tribe. And I could give this knowledge to your hara too. If I do, you must let Ulaume and I go free.’

‘What is the knowledge?’

‘That we can create gods, which I call dehara. You could create your own and I can show you how.’

Wraxilan was silent for some time. ‘There is no reason why you cannot stay with us. You have nothing else.’

‘I do not want to be part of a tribe.’

Wraxilan narrowed his eyes. ‘No, there is something else. You have another reason. Tell me.’

Flick lowered his eyes, building barriers around his thoughts. He must not betray Lileem and Mima to this har, let no light of their being seep through the cracks in his defences.

‘You know where he is, don’t you,’ Wraxilan said in a low voice. ‘You are waiting to go to him.’

‘No!’ Flick said. ‘It isn’t that!’

‘You will take me to him.’

‘I can’t,’ Flick said. ‘I don’t know where Cal is now. Part of the reason I left my kind is because of him. I need to be alone, to finish my work. That is all.’

‘I am not interested in your work,’ Wraxilan said. ‘You will tell me all you know of Cal. I want to hear your history with him.’

Flick found there was power in revealing just as much or as little as he wanted to. He didn’t tell the whole story, for he owed Wraxilan nothing. He sensed Wraxilan would not let him go free, whatever he said or did. The Lion was a collector, who liked to own unusual hara. Flick realised his only hope was to lull his captor into believing he wanted to be Uigenna and then plan an escape. For a moment, it had seemed he could bargain his way to freedom, and that he might have been able to introduce the Uigenna to the dehara, but it had quickly become clear the only god Wraxilan believed in was Cal. Once, some years ago, Cal had had his habitual devastating effect on this har and changed his life forever. Wraxilan had never forgotten and never would. He believed that Aruhani was Cal, created by Flick in Cal’s image. If the dehar’s skin was black where Cal’s was white, it was because it represented Cal’s great power, that of the hidden places where no light penetrated and the colour white could not exist. Flick knew this was not so. Aruhani had nothing to do with Cal, who was a damaged and ultimately pathetic creature, no matter how much charisma and beauty he might have. If Flick was ever to share his dehara with others, it was not to be among the Uigenna.

Sometime, in the hours before dawn, Wraxilan said, ‘I made a mistake in teaching you how powerful you are. Now, I will risk my life when I take aruna with you. You are of Saltrock, but you are also of Cal. You can never be light again, no matter what you think.’

This was not a pleasing thought and Flick hoped it was wrong, but then, only hours before, he had become something else. He had writhed in the dirt and had turned a violation into a sensual feast. Maybe he did have it in him to kill, as Cal did. Maybe he wasn’t who he thought himself to be at all. Ulaume would be proud. So Flick said nothing and merely smiled.

Wraxilan indicated the cushions beside him. ‘A life without risks is a dull life indeed. Come, show me what else you can do.’

Chapter Eighteen

Mima’s worst fear had been realised. The Wraeththu who had slaughtered her family and stolen her brothers had returned. She could sense their presence and it was familiar. This cellar, where she crouched with Lileem pressed firmly against her side, could be a sanctuary or a prison. She might be safe here or she might be trapped. Her thoughts were too confused and frightened for her to make sense of them. She couldn’t make plans, couldn’t even clear her head. The savages had done something terrible to Flick. She had felt his soul cry out. Ulaume was invisible. She could not sense him at all.

We are alone now,
she thought.
And I don’t know what to do.

Lileem trembled against her. ‘Will they come looking for us?’ she murmured.

‘I don’t know,’ Mima said.

‘Do you think we should try to run away? What’s happened to Flick and Lormy? Can we save them?’

‘Hush!’ Mima snapped, harsh because she had no answers.

‘Flick has called upon a dehar,’ Lileem said. ‘I felt it.’

‘Then let us hope his gods can save him,’ Mima said. She pushed Lileem away from her gently and cautiously approached the cellar steps. At any moment, she expected the door above to burst open and for death to come pouring down. Slowly, she crept to the top of the steps and put her ear against the door. All was silent beyond. She extended her senses and could not discern the tingle of living energy. Still, her instincts told her not to step outside. Not yet. But they couldn’t stay down here forever.

They had lanterns, but Mima was nervous of lighting one. Earlier, a few feeble shafts of light had come in through a grille at ground level, but now the sun had sunk and it was completely dark. Her semi-Wraeththu senses enabled her to perceive objects, but this was not a comfortable hiding place. Lileem was frightened and hungry and Mima’s own stomach had begun to growl demandingly. All they kept down here was Sefton Richards’ old stock of wine, and alcohol was the last thing she should drink now. Her head must be clear.

That night, Mima and Lileem slept in a nest of musty rotten sacks that were stiff with mildew. At one point, Mima woke up to hear Lileem weeping softly. The harling was attempting to muffle the sound in her hands. ‘Sssh,’ Mima said. ‘We must be strong. I will look after you.’

She woke early, as thin beams of light falling in through the ventilation grille stole across her face. Today, she must steel herself to going outside. They would starve to death down here. Lileem was still asleep, so Mima eased herself away from the harling’s side without waking her. She suspected Lileem had been awake most of the night. Slowly, Mima climbed the cellar steps. Her whole body itched, probably because the sacks she’d slept in were full of fleas or lice. Her skin felt sticky and her hair was stiff. Her mind was full of the image of the inviting pool by the waterfalls. At the top of the steps, just as she reached out to turn the handle on the door, it opened wide. Mima was so astonished she fell backwards a few steps. Light blinded her. She didn’t even have time to feel afraid.

‘Mima!’

For a moment, she thought it was Ulaume and relief flooded her body, but then her eyes adjusted and she saw that it was Terez. Her throat closed up. She could not utter a sound.

He came and took hold of her arms. ‘It is safe. You can come out now.’

Mima pulled herself away from him. Her fury was a high-pitched whine inside her head.

Lileem had woken up and had followed Mima up the steps. ‘You called them here, didn’t you!’ she cried. ‘They’ve taken Ulaume and Flick. It’s your fault.’

‘Come out. They’ve gone,’ Terez said.

Mima took Lileem to the kitchen, where they wolfed down some of Flick’s homemade bread and hunks of goats cheese. Mima could not bring herself to speak to Terez. Her rage and disappointment were a boulder in her neck, past which no sound could squeeze.

Lileem, however, could not keep silent, even while she was stuffing bread into her mouth. ‘You’re evil!’ she screamed, bits of chewed food flying from her lips across the table. ‘Flick and Lormy brought you back and you betrayed them. You should die!’

Terez stood with folded arms, leaning against the wall, apparently regarding Lileem’s tirade with indifference. When the harling had exhausted her stock of complaints, he pushed himself away from the wall and went to fetch water from the sink. He placed a cup of it next to Mima’s plate. She sniffed in contempt, but drained the cup. He filled it again and handed it to Lileem.

‘There is something you should know,’ Terez said.

Mima uttered a choked laugh. ‘And what is that? That we were fools to help you?’

‘The Wraeththu who incepted me, and who came back for me, they are Uigenna.’

‘Ulaume told me Cal was Uigenna,’ Mima said, the first thought that came into her head, followed by the second, which derived from what Flick and Ulaume had told her about the Wraeththu tribes. ‘They are monsters! You should have told us this! You lied to us. You said you didn’t know what tribe they were.’

‘I learned many things in the darkness, Mima, and one of them was how certain other tribes regarded the Uigenna. I could not tell Ulaume about this. He might have realised I could call to them, because they are strong, and that they would hear my call and return. I let him think some rogue hara attacked this place.’

Mima bared her teeth. ‘And you let Flick and Ulaume fall into their hands? What will they do to them?’

‘I don’t know. How can I? I only know the one I was seeking was not with them. Neither was Dorado. I came back here because I sensed my call had been answered.’

‘You’re too late,’ Mima said. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered coming back. They’ve left without you again.’

‘They will be easy to follow this time,’ Terez said. ‘You will wait here for me.’

‘What?’ Mima picked up her plate and threw it at him. It bounced off his head then shattered on the floor. ‘How dare you!’

Terez raised a hand to his brow, rubbed it. ‘You are angry,’ he said. ‘I understand that, but I’ll bring them back. I have to.’

‘Bring them back?’ Mima leapt to her feet. ‘What do you mean? Will you hand Lee and me over to them? Is this how you’ll wheedle your way back in with them?’

‘Ulaume and Flick,’ Terez said. ‘I will bring them back, and then you must move on.’

‘Why should you care?’ Mima said. ‘You have made your feelings about us very clear.’

‘Pell has told me to do this.’

‘Oh, has he!’ Mima said. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘He came to me,’ Terez said, ‘and I realise Flick is precious to him. I will bring them back.’

‘Why would he come to you and not to me?’ Mima said. ‘He would never have done that. You know it. I was the one he was close to, not you, and you are jealous of it, always have been.’

‘You tried to keep him to yourself, I know,’ Terez said. ‘But you’re wrong if you think I was jealous. Pell had his own way with Dorado and me, a different kind of closeness shared only between brothers. You were never part of it, and that is why he came to me now and not you.’

‘You’re insane!’ Mima cried. ‘We should have let you die. We should have killed you, like Ulaume wanted to.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘I know you don’t.’

Mima slumped back into her chair. ‘This is a mess,’ she said. ‘A hideous mess.’

Terez sat down beside her. ‘I dreamed of Pell and perhaps the voice that spoke to me was my own, but I knew I had to return. I knew what would happen and that it wasn’t right. Ulaume and Flick did what they could for me. I can feel their fear and their pain. I will bring them back and the score will be settled.’

‘You are not my brother any more,’ Mima said.

‘No, I’m not.’ Terez stood up again. ‘Keep watch, but I think it will be safe for you to stay here until I return.’

‘If you return.’

Terez said nothing, but walked out of the kitchen door, closing it gently behind him.

Mima raised her eyes and looked into Lileem’s wide accusing stare. She shrugged. ‘What can we do but trust him, Lee?’

Lianvis had fallen in love with Ulaume’s wiles at first sight and Ulaume had known how to manipulate the situation to his advantage. He’d thought he’d known the rules, what strategy to use. But now, none of it would work. For a start, Wraxilan had no interest in him, so Ulaume had no opportunity to ingratiate himself with the Uigenna leader. Second, it was clear the Uigenna harboured the greatest suspicion and contempt for the Kakkahaar. It gave no advantage to understand this was because they feared the desert tribe, because now they had a Kakkahaar alone. He was outnumbered and they could do what they liked to assuage the resentment they felt. The Uigenna were amoral. They had the highest respect for aruna, but could also turn to its darker side without shame. Pelki stripped the sanctity from Wraeththu’s most sacred creed. It was denial of the individual: it could unmake a har.

Like Flick, Ulaume realised that co-operation was the best strategy. If he complied, then what they did to him could not be pelki. But this could not stop their taunts, their laughter. Ulaume could not be himself. He could only be an object of ridicule. That first night, a few of Wraxilan’s closest hara came to the tepee where Ulaume was confined and amused themselves at his expense. He endured this and gave up trying to please them, because it did no good. Neither did they care if he was remote or not. He was just an object. Sometime, halfway through the night, Ulaume had had enough. He retaliated.

It happened involuntarily. One moment a har was pawing at his body, the next Ulaume’s hair had wrapped him in a strangling embrace. Ulaume squeezed hard, felt the life start to trickle out. His ears were filled with a buzzing shriek. He could hear panicked voices around him only faintly. His fingernails dug into tender flesh. He felt them sink in, like a blade through softened butter. If he dug hard enough he’d reach through muscle and flesh and find something more vital to tear at.

Then came the terrible pain. His head exploded with it, as if lightning had struck him. He was on fire. Ulaume uttered a roar, lashed out with clawed hands, but somehar was sawing at his hair with a serrated knife. They held his limbs, punched his face, his stomach. It lasted for an eternity.

He was on his knees, trying to breathe. On his knees in a swamp of slippery tawny locks. And around his face, each severed hair was bleeding. His head was a cauldron of pain.

The Uigenna stood around him in a circle, perhaps revolted by what they saw. He could hear their heavy breathing. The dying serpents of Ulaume’s hair writhed and flopped around him and what was left bled in thin threadlike streams onto his shoulders and down his chest. Since the day of his inception to the Colurastes, Ulaume had never cut his hair. Although he had imagined it when he’d first arrived at the white house, he knew he would never have done it. His instincts wouldn’t have let him, and this was why. It had never been dead.

‘Freak!’ One of the hara kicked him in the side.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ another said, and even in the delirium of pain, Ulaume heard the fear in his voice.

Left alone, he knelt on the ground, hands braced against it. His breathing was laboured. Eventually, the bleeding stopped and his head went numb. He dared not move. There was no way out of this. He was lost and his power was lost.

The following morning, the Uigenna struck camp. Ulaume was dragged naked from his tepee and taken to a covered wagon. Inside, was a cage in which a mountain lion crouched: Wraxilan’s pet. Beside it, was another cage: empty. The Uigenna threw Ulaume into the empty cage and locked it. He hunched there, almost mindless, his hair hanging over his face, stiff with dried blood. His face was a bloody mask. He stared at the lion and the lion stared back. They had nothing to say to one another.

When the lion was fed, Ulaume was fed. He was let out of the cage to relieve himself. He didn’t know in which direction they were heading or what would happen to him. His life was this: confinement. Perhaps when they reached the Uigenna town, Wraxilan would give him as a gift to one of his favoured aides.

It seemed that months passed, but it was only a few days. On the evening of the third day, the cages were unloaded from the wagon. Through the bars, Ulaume could see that the Uigenna were making camp, and it appeared to be more permanent than the last few nights. There must be something in this area that demanded their lengthy attention. A har, who Ulaume now regarded as his keeper, came to open the cages. He put a leash on both Ulaume and the lion and let them out. The lion must have been kept in this way since it was young, because it had no spirit. It did not lash out with its great paws and knock the har senseless, as it surely could have done.

‘You’re to clean yourself up,’ said the keeper to Ulaume. ‘Somehar wants you tonight.’

This was not welcome news, but perhaps Ulaume might be lucky and find himself with har who could be influenced by his charms; what was left of them.

The keeper led his charges to a deep watering hole, surrounded by high rocks. Here the lion crouched to drink. Ulaume went into the water and submerged himself, joined to the land by the leash. He wondered if he had the courage to drown himself. The har who held him did not yank the leash or pull him back. Ulaume relaxed, let his limbs float free. He felt the blood melt from him and drift away. His hair would grow again. He rubbed at his face with his hands, then smoothed his body. He must remember hope and strength. As long as he was alive, he had the power to make changes.