Ulaume put down the jug and curled up beside Lileem. The harling nestled against his side. ‘Are you still scared?’ Ulaume said.
Lileem’s eyes were so dark, they seemed to have no whites to them. They glittered with unshed tears. ‘There is only me,’ he said huskily.
‘I don’t think so,’ Ulaume said. ‘There will be other harlings. There must be. You must not feel alone.’
Lileem shook his head, looking so much older than he was. ‘No, just me. I’d hear their inside voices if they were out there. There is nohar like me.’
‘Indeed not. Every har is unique. And we are far from other hara here. You might not hear or feel others because of that. We don’t know. But you have me, and I will be with you for as long as you need.’
‘I know,’ Lileem said. ‘But the girl, he – she – is like me. When I saw her, I felt it. I knew her.’
Ulaume did not respond immediately. He thought about the differences from normal hara he had noticed in the harling’s body. Could it be possible it was not something that would change as Lileem developed? Perhaps this was the reason Lileem had been exposed in the desert. Could a har give birth to a female child? But Lileem was clearly not human, because he grew so quickly and was weirdly wise. A Wraeththu female? Impossible, surely.
‘Tell me the quiet things aloud,’ Lileem whispered. ‘Please, Lormy. Tell me. What is the scared feeling when you look at me sometimes? Why does my hostling weep and why aren’t I with him?’
Ulaume uttered a groan and kissed Lileem’s head. ‘I want you to be happy,’ he said. ‘Happy and free. I don’t want you to worry or be afraid.’
‘I am happy and afraid,’ Lileem said. ‘I want to know.’
‘Your head is a thousand years old,’ Ulaume said. ‘All right. But I can stop at any time. Just put a finger to my lips.’
Lileem only reached out and touched Ulaume’s mouth when the story was finished. He gently traced the shape of Ulaume’s lips with his fingers. Ulaume could feel him trembling. ‘You see,’ he said. ‘There is only me.’
‘What have we discovered?’ Ulaume murmured and drew the harling close to him held him tight. ‘Oh Leelee, I don’t know. I don’t know.’
They slept for a couple of hours, then Ulaume went downstairs to prepare some breakfast. He couldn’t help glancing around him continually, sure he would catch a glimpse of the strange girl, but she was nowhere around. In daylight, it was hard to believe he’d actually seen her.
Lileem came trailing into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He yawned and started poking around at the eggs Ulaume was preparing, rolling the empty shells beneath his fingers. ‘I came from something like that,’ he said.
‘In a way,’ Ulaume said. ‘Sit down.’
Lileem perched on a chair. ‘When Pellaz died, he cried out to all the world,’ he said.
Ulaume froze. ‘The girl told you that?’
‘No. I heard it. In my warm place where I was curled up.’
‘He died the moment your pearl was born, I think.’
Lileem nodded. ‘Yes, but I’m not him. You just thought that, didn’t you?’
Ulaume smiled, surprised to find he was not as unnerved by that remark as he perhaps should be. ‘I know you’re not him, Leelee. But you’re quite the little oracle, aren’t you? I never realised how much. Also, I should tell you it’s rude to pry into people’s thoughts. Don’t do it unless you really have to.’
‘You heard his cry too,’ Lileem said. ‘It was a big wind that swept around. It was inside me when we went through the desert, and I didn’t know what it was. Now I do.’
‘Is the girl his sister?’
‘You think she is.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Don’t know. I’ll ask her.’
Ulaume continued to beat eggs. He was aware he must proceed carefully. ‘When, Lee?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘When do you see her?’
‘In the grey times, at morning and at night mostly. Then you call me in for breakfast or supper and she has to go.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Perhaps you could ask her that as well.’
‘She won’t talk to you,’ Lileem said. ‘She thinks you’re like the others, who did the bad things. She wants to kill you, but I’ve told her not to.’
‘Thanks!’ Ulaume said, in a harsher tone than he meant to use.
‘I like the ‘she’ word, it’s soft,’ Lileem said wistfully. ‘Can I be she?’
‘Be what you like,’ Ulaume said. ‘It doesn’t matter. You are what you are, whatever that is.’
‘Two things, one thing!’ Lileem said and giggled loudly. ‘Two things, one thing. She he she he she he. I’m a she she she.’
‘That’s enough,’ Ulaume said. ‘It might change, Lee. We don’t know yet. Just be, and don’t get attached to one idea. There’s enough of that goes on among Wraeththukind, and it causes half the problems, I’m sure.’
After breakfast, Ulaume let Lileem go out alone into the gardens, hoping that the girl would show herself to the harling. He had no doubt she would not appear if he was around, so it seemed he had no choice but to leave the hill. He realised he had been putting this moment off for weeks. He dressed himself in shirt and trousers and walked barefoot down the rough road.
As he walked, clouds drew in from both the east and west, turning the sky a strange greenish purple. Though he could not see it, Ulaume knew that lightning stitched itself within the boiling vapour. He could not hear it, but he felt thunder in his bones. Past the creaking windmills, the stable doors banging, the empty yards, the staring windows. Gradually, the sounds around him folded themselves away into the air, and he walked in a silence that vibrated like a plucked wire. Some terrible ghost awaited him, and it had been waiting long.
Nothing looked real in the strange light. The house before him now was like an image from a grainy photograph. Ulaume closed his eyes. He must open up, summon back the parts of himself he’d sought to bury beneath domesticity and mundane routine. In his mind, he saw a boy on the porch, sitting with his knees up, intent on sharpening a knife. His eyes held the same dull metallic glint as the metal in his hands. The air was full of a misty rain and the boy, who had been Pellaz, was part of it, a creature of mist who might vanish in an instant should Ulaume reach out and touch him. Then, as before, he sensed a presence bearing down from behind, the sounds of hooves slow-clopping on the damp earthy road. Ulaume paused. He could hear thunder, or was it the rhythmic boom of someone pounding metal, or the sound of a giant marching ponderously across the cordillera to the east, taking in forests with each stride? It was his own heart, amplified and intense.
Ulaume felt the entity enter his body and it passed right through him. He was drawn onto tiptoe as it did so, unable to breathe, his chest constricted with terrible pain. Then, released, he saw it, as he had not done before: Cal on a red pony riding away from him, having passed through Ulaume’s heart. He rode towards Pellaz, and Ulaume knew this must have been the first, fateful meeting between them.
Pellaz looked up, his eyes dull silver. In his hands, the knife shivered with blue fire. Cal’s first words were, ‘Behold, I have come to take your life,’ but these words were unspoken. Ulaume heard him speak aloud and he said, ‘I am Cal.’ He might as well have said, ‘I am the demon of the darkest corner of your soul.’ Anyone could see he was already cursed.
Ulaume opened his eyes, and for a brief instant could still see the two of them on the porch. Then, the image wavered, and shattered like glass, pieces of Pell and Cal flying out in all directions. Thunder broke in the west and a charge of lightning struck down in the fields beyond the settlement. Ulaume would not let himself think or evaluate. He walked on, his feet now treading the steps to the porch. He reached out to unfasten the door but it was already open.
In the kitchen beyond, the Cevarro family sat eating a meal around a table. Ulaume heard laughter, the scrape of cutler
y against plates. He saw Cal sitting among them, and from his fingers silver threads emanated, each hooked into the heart of someone at the table. Their eyes were milky and blind – but for two. Ulaume recognised her then, a younger, innocent image of the wild girl who had run from him the previous evening. She could see clearly, and so could Pellaz. Pellaz stared only at Cal and the girl stared only at her brother. Cal was so busy he hadn’t noticed she could see. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have cared anyway. Or maybe the Uigenna in him would have killed her for it. Ulaume stood at the threshold and saw something he’d never had, but which he’d sometimes, in the most secret moments of childhood, longed for. The Cevarro family was wrapped in a golden caul of light. There was an intimacy between them that while it included others also excluded them. Pellaz was loved. He’d always been loved. Perhaps it was part of what had impelled Cal to steal him away. Without even being aware of it, he’d been jealous of what Pellaz had and had sought to destroy it.
Perhaps I would have done the same, Ulaume thought. I would have been full of derision and contempt for this. I would have stolen him too, broken their cosy intimacy. Something has happened to me. I have lost myself.
At that moment, Pellaz turned his head and stared directly into Ulaume’s eyes. ‘I did not choose what I was meant to be,’ he said. Around him, the image of Cal and his family continued to converse. Pellaz had stepped outside of the vision.
‘What were you?’ Ulaume asked. ‘Have you changed me? Have you brought me here?’
‘Help them,’ Pellaz said. ‘You are strong, Ulaume, and you can do it. I will not remember this. I have much to learn. I will despise and condemn you, but now, in this moment, I know you are the one.’
‘Are you really dead?’
‘None of us are ever really dead.’
‘Please answer me.’
Pellaz rose from his seat and came to take Ulaume’s hand. He seemed small and childlike, and his skin was warm. ‘I am dead,’ he said, ‘but I live. Come.’
He began to lead Ulaume away from the room, into the house, and when Ulaume glanced back, he saw another Pellaz still sitting at the table, gazing at the destiny that was Cal.
The house was in darkness, but breathed softly around them. Pell’s fingers felt very real in Ulaume’s own. ‘I have seen your sister,’ Ulaume whispered. He dared not raise his voice.
‘She is strong, like you,’ Pellaz said. ‘She survived, as I survived.’
‘You want me to help her?’
‘She does not need your help in the way you think, but you might help each other.’
They had come to a closed door. Pellaz put his free hand flat upon it. ‘In this room, we first shared breath,’ he said. ‘Cal showed me everything and nothing. I did not know him, and I will not know him for a very long time, but our souls are one. He is me and I him. Look.’
He pushed open the door and Ulaume saw Pellaz lying on the bed, next to another, who lay snoring, presumably one of his brothers. On the floor, wrapped in a blanket, lay Cal, his violet eyes open, staring wildly. He was planning, feverishly. And Pellaz, taut as a frightened hare, did so also. It was inevitable they should be drawn to one another. Pellaz no longer stood beside Ulaume at the threshold. Now, he was on the floor, beneath Cal’s blanket and Cal’s hand was upon his face.
Ulaume heard a noise from the bed, and began to back from the room. He did not want to see them take aruna together, and yet how could they have done, when Pellaz had still been human? Pell’s brother on the bed was writhing beneath the blanket. Ulaume could see his breath steaming in the air, which had become suddenly icy. Ulaume was shaken back to reality. This was no vision.
The room looked abandoned, wrecked, and it was daylight now. Someone, or something, writhed upon the bed amid a debris of withered leaves and shattered glass. It squealed like a frightened pig. Ulaume cautiously approached. He drew back the blanket, saw brown skin, and a back with the spine sticking out of it so far it looked as if it grew on the outside. So thin, and it stank of shit and blood. Human or har? Impossible to tell, but whatever it was, it was sick or dying. Ulaume reached out tentatively, put one finger upon it and at once the creature sprang up. Ulaume fell back, uttering a shocked cry. The face was terrible, huge eyes protruding from a skin-covered skull, the teeth too large and long. This apparition threw itself from the bed. Upright, it jerked like an animated puppet, careening from wall to wall, legs stiff, arms held out. Its hair was a filthy mane of tangles and twigs. It uttered hideous strangled squeals.
Ulaume had never beheld anything so vile. The mere sight of it seemed anathema to life and reality. It went beyond surface appearances, which in themselves were terrible. It was a great wrongness.
Before Ulaume could flee the room, the thing had lurched past him and its dreadful noises diminished as it moved away. Ulaume felt dazed. He could barely move, although his flesh crawled with revulsion. What had Pellaz shown him? Was this what Pellaz had, or would, become?
Back at the white house, Ulaume could not find Lileem. He searched all the rooms and the gardens, calling the harling’s name. He must be with the girl and would no doubt reappear at sundown. Ulaume’s heart beat fast all day. Wherever he was, he kept glancing out of windows, sure he would see some terrible vision shambling up the hill. The image he’d seen in the Cevarro house would not leave his mind. He felt nauseous, light headed.
As Ulaume predicted, Lileem reappeared when the evening meal was ready. ‘You should come in earlier,’ Ulaume said sharply. ‘It’s time you began to help me more. Look at you. You’re half grown up already.’
Lileem didn’t say anything, but went to wash his filthy hands in the sink. It looked as if he’d been rolling in mud all day.
Ulaume dished out the food and said carelessly. ‘Did you see the girl today, Leelee?’
‘No,’ the harling said, tucking into his food with relish.
‘What have you been doing, then?’
‘I waited for her, but she didn’t come,’ Lileem said. ‘I went to the water mill and saw some silver fish.’
‘That’s in the town,’ Ulaume said. ‘Don’t go down there, it’s not safe.’
‘It is,’ Lileem said.
‘I saw something today,’ Ulaume said. ‘I think there are other things here apart from the girl.’
Lileem said nothing.
Chapter Eleven
For over two weeks, Lileem claimed he no longer saw the girl. Ulaume, unsure of the harling’s truthfulness, stooped to spying on him, to no avail. Perhaps the girl had moved on, spooked by Ulaume catching sight of her. Neither did he see again the creature he’d come across in the Cevarro house. He rarely left the hill and told himself what he’d seen had been part of a vision, nothing more. He tried to create some kind of routine. He would bring Lileem up in this place. The past was done, but always he could feel the unseen tugging at the locks on his senses, trying to find a way in.
One evening, he said to Lileem, ‘Do you think the girl has left this place?’
Lileem paused before answering, enough to alert Ulaume to a forthcoming untruth. ‘She’s not here,’ Lileem said.
Ulaume said nothing more, but he felt angry inside. Lileem was cunning, as only a child could be. Cunning in innocence. The girl was still around and she was positioning herself between Ulaume and Lileem. She was luring the harling away.
Ulaume said nothing more on the subject and did not let his anger show. He remembered how he used to be, how no har ever got something over on him, how he always got revenge.
The following morning at breakfast, he said to Lileem. ‘I have to go back down to the Cevarro house today. I must meditate there. I need to know answers. Do not follow me, and do not stray into the town. I will be gone all day. Will you be all right alone?’
Lileem nodded, without even glancing up.
‘Good,’ said Ulaume.
After they’d eaten, he left Lileem to see to the dishes and left the house. He had no doubt the girl must be watching him, so he we
nt slowly down the hill, heading towards the Cevarro house, although he had no intention of going there. Nothing would entice him back into that afflicted place. Instead, he went into another house and there set about shrouding his thoughts. It was clear to him that whenever Lileem had been with the girl, he’d utilised his psychic abilities to warn himself of Ulaume’s approach. Ulaume intended to put a stop to that. He waited a couple of hours and then let down his hair, so that it fell around him in a cloudy veil. He went out into the sunlight and squeezed himself into the spaces between the air, so that nohar could see him and nohar could feel his presence. Now let us see, he thought.
He heard their laughter before he saw them. There was an outcrop of rock on the side the hill that was part of the garden. Here a landscaped waterfall slipped down a series of carved chutes and bowls shadowed by hardy ferns. Ulaume already knew this was one of Lileem’s favourite places, even though he’d warned the harling that the rocks were dangerous. He crept through the trees and saw them playing together, the girl splashing water over the harling, while Lileem waded noisily through the ponds, shrieking and giggling, soaked to the skin. There was an intimacy between them that made Ulaume furious at once. Lileem had lied to him, after all that Ulaume had done. He could have left the harling to die in the desert, but he had not. He had given up his life for this child and this was how he was repaid.
So have it, he thought bitterly. You are a freak, Lileem, and now I will leave you here in the care of a creature who will grow old and die, who can teach you nothing about yourself, and who will not be able to protect you from strangers. I will return to my tribe, as I should have done before. Pellaz is dead. I owe him nothing.
The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure Page 18
