The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure (54 page)

‘Yes,’ Flick said. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of being watched.’

‘It’s a Gelaming habit I’ve picked up.’

‘A pity you couldn’t have helped when I ran into Seel, then.’

Pellaz laughed. ‘Oh Flick, don’t you get it? I was at that party in Galhea. Nohar knew it, but I saw what happened. I had already vowed to find you one day, and then, there you were.’

‘Do you do that often?’ Flick asked. ‘Spy on your friends? Did Cobweb and Seel know you were there?’

‘No. I was there because I sensed I would learn something important, and I did.’ He kissed Flick briefly on the cheek. ‘There are no surprises, my friend.’

After Pellaz had gone, Flick sat and stared at the sky for over an hour, but not in quite the same contented mood he’d enjoyed before. No surprises. Pellaz was wrong. There was a lot he didn’t know.

There are so many things I should have asked him,
Flick thought.
Next time…

Flick lingered in the mountain meadows until long after sundown. He was sure that the moment he set foot in the house, his companions would sense at once that something enormous had happened. He dreaded looking into Ulaume’s eyes. Like Cal had in the past, it seemed Pellaz had already made a liar of him. Pellaz and Cal were two halves of the same being. Did the Tigron know where Cal was now?

However, coincidence, the most potent of cosmic forces, was working in Flick’s favour. When he finally mustered the courage to return home, he walked in on another enormous happening. The whole household had been thrown into a flustered panic, because a har had turned up for dinner. A har, who was now sitting at the kitchen table, filling the room with his dark, smouldering presence. Terez Cevarro.

Chapter Thirty

Lileem had quickly discovered her vocation lay in caring for animals. Tel-an-Kaa had found a good job for her in Opalexian’s personal stable, and now she cared for some of the finest horses in the land. Not as fine as Astral, of course, but still beautiful specimens.

For some weeks after their arrival in Shilalama, Lileem had meditated before her statue of the Tigron every night, but whatever brief contact she felt she’d had with him seemed to have vanished. He had helped them, but why had it ended there? He knew where they were. Gradually, her interest in him faded, because he seemed to have no relevance in Roselane and real life considerations took over.

Lileem had quickly made many friends among the Roselane, as had Mima, who with her prior experience in farming had secured a good position as a farm overseer on the outskirts of Shilalama. Again, Tel-an-Kaa had had a hand in making sure Mima had landed a decent job. Although it was her life’s work to scour the world for straying Kamagrian and bring them to the fold of Roselane, the Zigane clearly had special feelings for Lileem and Mima. Whenever she was in the city, she would come for dinner, or invite them to her home. This friendship gave Lileem and Mima high status among the Kamagrian. Both of them, however, secretly felt they were closer to the hara they knew than to the parazha who were so eager to embrace them into their sisterhood. There was something about Kamagrian with which neither Lileem nor Mima felt entirely comfortable. Mima especially was contemptuous of the emphasis on the female side of their being. It was a subject that obsessed her and she’d come to the conclusion that all hara and parazha simply continued to identify with the gender they’d once been and that was the main difference between them. When Mima learned that some Kamagrian, who considered themselves amongst the most spiritual of their kind, had actually had their ouana-lim surgically removed, she was incensed. ‘That is not the message Opalexian should be giving parazha,’ she said. ‘It’s irresponsible and sick.’

Lileem just thought it was stupid and that the parazha concerned had problems that weren’t really being dealt with. Meditation and prayer were all very well, but the physical body was important too. This, she decided, was what she and Mima liked most about Wraeththu. Aruna between Kamagrian was not as common place as it was among hara, where it was as much a part of social etiquette as sharing a drink or a meal. Many Kamagrian felt uncomfortable with their male aspects and sought to subsume them. She supposed that Wraeththu did the same with their female sides, although not so much in a sexual sense. What a tragic mess.

Tel-an-Kaa, for all her rhetoric and often bombastic nature, was more balanced than any other parage Lileem had met. She had seen the Zigane’s real self, and it was not that much different from Ulaume or Flick. But Tel-an-Kaa would not hear a word against other parazha or their – to Lileem – misguided ways. She just said that all parazha should accept how their sisters wanted to live.

‘They are just too
nice
,’ Mima once said scathingly of their new friends. ‘By Aru, I almost crave seeing Terez again, just to experience a bit of healthy dark!’

Her words, it transpired, were prophetic.

Lileem was alone in the house when a knock came at the front door. All their friends always came to the back door, which was never shut in warm weather, so Lileem knew it had to be a stranger who’d come calling. She’d just begun to prepare the evening meal, and went to answer the knock with a knife in one hand. She opened it and a black shadow fell over her.

‘Hello Lee,’ said Terez, smiling. ‘Put down the knife. I hope there’s no need for it.’

‘Terez!’ Lileem exclaimed, in a voice she was sure sounded like a strangled squeak. ‘You’re here! You found us!’

‘Were you hiding from me?’

She stood aside to let him into the house. ‘We had to leave Megalithica so quickly, we had no chance to tell you. I always wondered whether we’d see you again.’

‘Well, you are.’

She led him into the kitchen. ‘So much has changed.’

‘Yes,’ he said. He sat down at the table and rummaged in the leather satchel he carried. ‘I hope you don’t mind me turning up like this.’

‘Mind?’ He’d never cared about that before. Lileem laughed nervously. ‘I kind of missed you.’

Terez pulled a smoking pipe out of the satchel. ‘When you were a harling, you always used to watch me. I know you never liked what you saw. But, when we used to meet on the river, it was you who was most welcoming. I noticed that. Share a smoke?’

Lileem had been thrown into confusion by these disclosures. ‘Better not. I have to get dinner ready.’ Strange how she could sound so calm, when inwardly war had just broken out. ‘There’s wine in the larder. Do you want some with that?’

‘OK.’

She dried her hands on a towel. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

Terez stuffed his pipe with hemp. ‘Lileem the harling has gone for good. You’re quite the grown up har now, aren’t you.’

‘It happens. Time does that to a har, you know.’

‘Sorry, I keep remembering that grubby faced imp back home and the awkward coltish creature on the ‘Esmeraldarine’. Now, here you are, in full flower.’

Lileem knew her face was bright red and could do nothing to change it. ‘You’re not exactly the suppurating husk you once were, either,’ she said, and fled the room.

She went into the larder to compose herself, convinced her heart would burst from her chest at any moment. He was so much more handsome than she remembered, if that was possible. Images of Terez prior to his re-inception no longer seemed real. ‘Remember Chelone,’ she told herself. ‘Don’t be an idiot.’ She must never betray to him that she’d fantasised about seeing him again a thousand times.

She brought out the flagon, crafted by Ulaume’s own hand and decorated with pictures of inebriated hara, and poured him a gobletful with a steady hand. ‘Did you get to meet Pellaz?’

Terez pulled a sour face. ‘No. I did get to Immanion, but my dear brother is such an exalted har now, I couldn’t get near him. I was heavily dissuaded, in fact, and old family ties have no importance now.’

‘We thought that might be the case.’ She sat down at the table with him, basking in the luxury of these moments alone with him.

Terez lit his pipe and took a long draw. ‘So, what exactly are you now, Lee? Have you found out? What about Mima?’

He had never spoken to her like this before. He had barely acknowledged her existence. Perhaps his travels had mellowed him. ‘Oh, we’re fine,’ she said. ‘Same old freaks. Mima had a fling with a har in Galhea.’ She shrugged. ‘So…’

‘I know you went to Galhea. I went looking for you and it became quite a quest to track you all down. My information as to your whereabouts came from Galhea. Took some time.’

‘Nohar knew where we were heading, other than to the eastern continent.’

‘It was difficult, but not impossible. I eventually managed to meet with two hara who’d escorted you to the coast.’

‘Leef and Chelone.’

‘That’s right. I told them I was Mima’s brother, and we look enough alike for that to sway them, so they told me you were heading for the northeast coast. I continued to ask around, and used the services of scryers, until I eventually found my way to Freyhella. They told me you were bound for Roselane in Jaddayoth, and that some Gelaming har had helped you on your journey. Is that right? Who was it?’

‘Not Pell,’ Lileem said. ‘You are quite a sleuth, Terez. I wouldn’t want to be an enemy of yours. There would be nowhere to hide.’

Terez laughed and drank some of the wine. He shuddered.

‘I know,’ Lileem said in sympathy. ‘It’s my first batch, but it tastes OK after a few glasses.’

‘Hara round here are too open,’ Terez said. ‘It only took a few minutes to find out where you lived. Good job I’m not an enemy, isn’t it?’

‘There are no locked doors in Shilalama,’ Lileem said. ‘That’s why we like it here.’

‘There seem to be a lot of humans here though. I saw several on my way here.’

‘There aren’t that many,’ Lileem said. ‘Just a few refugees. They keep to themselves mostly and have dwellings in the hills beyond the city. They come to Shilalama for supplies and trade, but after a while, you don’t even notice them. They’re just neighbours.’ She hesitated. ‘Why have you looked for us, Terez?’

‘You’re my family, aren’t you?’

‘That never meant anything to you before.’

He shrugged. ‘I found Immanion and it was the end of the path. A dead end. What next? Uigenna. No thanks. Other tribes? Too much effort. All I could think of was you four, and the pleasant evenings on the ‘Esmeraldarine’. We didn’t get off to the best of starts, but I think we were friends in the end. I want to make the peace with Mima. Human family ties are supposed to mean nothing now, but I like to buck against tradition, even Wraeththu tradition. Pellaz has no interest in us, Dorado has vanished into haradom, so there is only Mima. And she
is
har, or thereabouts.’

‘She will be astonished to learn of your feelings!’ Lileem said.

‘No more astonished than I was when I realised they were there.’

As Lileem continued to prepare the meal, now adding extra meat and vegetables to accommodate their surprise guest, she wondered whether, despite Roselane openness, she and her family should allow strangers to the tribe into their home. In her experience, none came to Shilalama uninvited, or at least they were vetted by Opalexian’s staff before being granted access. ‘Did anyhar try to stop you finding us here?’ she asked.

‘Not really. I said I was expected. Kept the family ties secret, of course, but… Where
are
the others?’

‘Out working,’ Lileem said, then told him the details. He didn’t seem that interested, which was a trait of the old familiar Terez.

Ulaume arrived home first and appeared quite pleased to see Terez, but you could never really tell with Ulaume. Claws might be extended later.

‘Good to see your hair grew back,’ Terez said to him, which Lileem considered to be rather an insensitive remark. ‘The talk is that Wraxilan is dead now, so unfortunately I’ll never get to punish him for you.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Ulaume said. ‘It would have been nice if you’d brought me his head as a present.’

Terez laughed. He appeared so at ease, and that was something entirely new for him. ‘If I’d had more time, I could have brought you a few Uigenna skins instead.’

‘Mmm, that would have been good. I need a new coat.’

Mima, however, effectively squashed this playful reunion. When she walked in through the back door, her reaction to finding Terez in her kitchen was a cold ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Seeking my sister,’ he answered smoothly.

She took off her coat and made a great fuss of putting her lunch satchel away. ‘I remember we once agreed we were no longer brother and sister.’

‘That was wrong. We are. We can’t ignore it.’

Ulaume excused himself from the room, and Lileem wished she could do the same, but unfortunately the bubbling pans needed supervising.

‘Did you find our other brothers?’ Mima asked. She got herself a goblet and poured a drink of Lileem’s toxic wine.

‘No. It’s just you and me.’

Mima regarded him thoughtfully, tapping the cup against her lips. ‘What do you want?’

‘Peace,’ he said. ‘On your terms. I’ve missed you all.’

Mima, surely, had to be as shocked by this admission as Lileem had been. It was in Mima’s nature to be difficult and to draw this situation out for as long as possible, and Lileem hoped she wouldn’t. She wanted them all to sit down to dinner with Terez and have a good evening. She wanted them all to be friends. She also knew she’d better not open her mouth, because if she did Mima would jump on her like a furious cat.

‘I’m sorry,’ Terez said. ‘Will that do? What else can I say?’

Mima took a drink, hardened enough to its unique bouquet not to wince. ‘OK,’ she said softly, in a measured tone, ‘but if this is to work, there’s something you should know.’

Don’t,
Lileem thought.
Please don’t, Mima.
She had stared at the steaming pans for so long, her eyes were watering.

‘Sure,’ Terez said cautiously.

‘It was me who took you from the Uigenna,’ Mima said, then drained her cup noisily. Lileem glanced round quickly and saw tears in Mima’s eyes, but Lileem could tell they were only an effect of the tart wine.

Terez just stared at his sister.

‘Did you hear me?’ Mima said, refilling her goblet. ‘I aborted your inception. It was me. I thought I was doing the right thing.’

Terez looked away from her and stared down at the table. Silence was absolute, but for the inappropriately cheerful bubble of the pans. For long seconds, no one moved or spoke. Then Lileem saw that Terez was shaking. She glanced at Mima, who caught her eye. Mima’s expression was cold, somehow accusatory, but also slightly puzzled. The sound Terez made was a dreadful thing, like the whines and howls when he’d been ill. It was low at first, a hideous continuous moan.

Lileem dropped whatever she was holding, and she would never remember what that was, and began to move across the kitchen towards Terez.