But first, he could not resist revealing himself.
He folded himself out of the air and for some moments hid among the trees, projecting intention towards the harling. Lileem soon picked up on this and froze. The girl did not notice and continued to play. Ulaume stepped forth from the trees. He felt his hair rise around him. He felt the fire in his own eyes. ‘Lileem!’ he said.
An expression of pure horror convulsed the harling’s features and even though Ulaume was so angry, he could not help but be affected by that. It hurt him, but also fuelled his fury. ‘Come here!’ he cried.
Lileem panicked. Instead of obeying Ulaume’s command, he sought to escape the other way. It happened so quickly. One moment, he was clambering up the sheer rocks, the next he was falling, arms flailing. Ulaume’s heart stopped. It seemed the harling fell in slow motion down to the next pool, where cruel rocks protruded from the water. He landed with a mighty splash and spray flew everywhere. Ulaume leapt forward and so did the girl. She reached Lileem first, expelling animal cries of alarm. She lifted the small limp body in her arms, gazed at it. Blood poured from a wound on Lileem’s forehead. His eyes were half open.
Ulaume felt as if he were trying to force his body through glutinous syrup. He could not move fast enough. He could not reach Lileem’s side. As he watched, the wild girl bent her head to the wound and began to slurp at the swiftly rilling blood.
‘Get away from him!’ Ulaume roared and lunged across the last few feet between them. He struck at the girl’s head, which snapped back. She recovered quickly, clasping Lileem to her breast, snarling up at Ulaume, her bared teeth red. She was like a cornered rat: in the position of disadvantage but unafraid and prepared to fight. In the few brief moments while Ulaume considered how best to deal with her, she looked away from him and began to lick the harling’s head once more. There was too much blood for her to consume. It ran over her fingers. She uttered soft crooning sounds. It was at this moment that Ulaume realised she wasn’t feeding but trying to heal. His anger flowed out of him and ran with Lileem’s blood downstream. He hunkered down in the water a few feet away from the girl and said, ‘Let me have him. I can make it better. Let me have him.’
The girl stared at him through wild tangles of hair. The whole bottom half of her face was red and scarlet streams were swirling out into the pool around her.
Ulaume held out his hands, projected from them the healing power he had learned during his caste training. Perhaps the girl could feel it. Slowly, he edged forward. The girl tensed and scrabbled back a short way. Lileem’s limbs dangled bonelessly in the water. He did not move. Ulaume continued to murmur soft reassurances and then his hands were upon Lileem’s face. He exhaled and realised he’d been holding his breath. He was aware of the warmth of the girl’s body, her heavy breathing. He could smell her: a mixture of sweat and sage. Ulaume traced the wound on Lileem’s head and projected the intention to close it, to cauterise the capillaries, to clot the blood. It made his head ache; he’d rarely bothered with healing before. He wasn’t doing it right, because he could tell he was using too much of his own energy rather than channelling that in the environment, but there was no other way. It had to be done now. He did it for too long perhaps, because when Lileem stirred beneath his fingers, Ulaume fell to the side, his face in the water, unable to move. He was partly breathing in water, but was powerless to help himself. Through one eye, he saw the girl place Lileem tenderly on a flat rock, then come wading towards him. She caught hold of his hair and dragged him to the bank, so that his head lay on the smooth rock, his body still submerged. She kicked him savagely in the side, then went back to Lileem.
Ulaume lay panting and coughing, desperately seeking strength from the living trees around him, from the water itself. The girl could make off with Lileem now. Then what would happen? Ulaume knew he hadn’t yet done enough to effect a complete healing. Lileem needed gentle handling and proper care.
He watched the girl squatting over the harling, touching his hair, his limbs, making soft sounds of concern. She kept shaking her head like a cat, as if she had something in her ears. She stood up, waving her hands around her face as if warding off a plague of flies. She staggered on the rock, uttering strange sounds.
Ulaume hauled himself from the water and lay on the bank. He absorbed the green balm of the trees, the light of the land. He was struck by the absurdity of their situation. Lileem lay semi-conscious on a rock, while he himself was paralysed by exhaustion. The girl, their strange companion in drama, was reeling drunkenly through the pool, screeching and fighting off invisible enemies. Ulaume knew why, and he could not help smiling about it. Lileem’s blood had poisoned her.
Ulaume carried Lileem back to the house and put him to bed. As far as he could discern, the harling had suffered a mild concussion, but there was no fracture of the skull. Because his healing skills were not that advanced, Ulaume resolved to give Lileem hands-on treatments every few hours. But from now on, he must be careful not to deplete himself.
After a couple of hours, Lileem woke and clung to Ulaume fiercely. ‘You betrayed me,’ Ulaume said, stroking his hair. ‘Look what happened.’
Lileem wept softly. He was, after all, only a child.
Once he was satisfied Lileem was comfortable and sleeping normally, Ulaume went back to the pools. Lavender dusk was stealing in and the trees were full of cicadas. He expected the girl to be dead, but she wasn’t. She was curled up beneath an acacia, shivering and muttering to herself. A twinge in Ulaume’s side reminded him of her vicious kick. He observed her for some minutes, but she didn’t seem to realise he was there. She was so like Pellaz, it was uncanny: the lush black hair, the perfect face and the graceful slim body. In the vision, Pellaz had said: ‘Help those I love’. He’d also mentioned that this female creature could help Ulaume. Presumably, her supping Lileem’s blood had not been part of Pell’s plan.
Sighing, Ulaume squatted down and let his right hand hover over the girl’s head. She was giving off a lot of heat and energy, but he couldn’t sense death approaching. She might rear up and attack him at any moment, but vulnerable and defenceless as she was now, it was difficult not to feel pity. She had lost everything, even her humanity to a degree, and Wraeththu had caused that. It was a miracle she had survived.
Ulaume lifted her in his arms and took her back to the house. She was limp and did not stir in his hold. He made up a bed for her on the floor in the kitchen, next to the stove, where it was warm. She shivered beneath the blankets, her lips surrounded by a white crust of dried foam. It looked to Ulaume as if she was going through althaia, the changing. But no females had successfully mutated into Wraeththu. Lileem, of course, could be different from normal hara, not just in physical appearance, but also because he was pure born, and had never been incepted. Perhaps pure born hara could incept females. Perhaps Ulaume would now find out. He composed himself in a chair and watched her through the night, accompanied only by a couple of bottles of wine he took from the cellar. Occasionally, he’d go to check on and give healing to Lileem, whose breathing was deep and regular and who now sported a large discoloured lump on his forehead.
Before dawn, Ulaume dozed off, and was woken up some hours later by Lileem pulling on his arm. He opened his eyes and looked down into Lileem’s familiar grave expression. A quick glimpse across the room assured him the girl was still comatose beneath the blankets.
‘Sorry,’ said Lileem.
Ulaume reached out and touched the harling’s face gently. ‘I won’t punish you,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve learned a lesson.’
Lileem glanced at the bundle on the floor. ‘You brought her here… Is she ill? What happened?’
‘There is something wrong with her, certainly.’ Ulaume stretched languorously: his limbs were stiff. ‘Perhaps you are not as different from me as we thought.’
Lileem frowned. ‘What?’
‘We will have to wait and see,’ Ulaume said, ‘but I have an idea of what’s wrong with her.’
/> For three days, as in a normal althaia, the girl writhed and screeched beneath her blankets. She ran a high fever and her skin was flaking and sore. Ulaume did what he could for her. She was like a wild creature, a bundle of defensive instincts. When she’d been vicious with him before, he’d hated her, but now could feel only pity. Also, she was beautiful in the way a wolf is beautiful: unapproachable, best admired from afar. He smoothed her tangled hair and bathed her face with cold water. She didn’t know he was there. Sometimes, among her animal noises, he thought he heard her whispering Pell’s name, but he couldn’t be sure.
Twice, Ulaume woke in the morning to find damage had been done to the garden outside and yet he never heard anything during the night. He remembered what he’d seen in the Cevarro house and told Lileem not to stray. The girl might have been his only protection from whatever roamed out there.
On the evening of the third day, the girl’s fever abated and she slept easily. Whatever had happened to her was over, but Ulaume had no idea what he should do next, if anything. A Wraeththu har’s inception was consummated by aruna, but there was no one to do that for the girl. He certainly wouldn’t, or couldn’t, himself. She was not har. She was something else and it was as if his sexual senses couldn’t recognise her.
Lileem had found some old board games, only partly chewed by mice, and sat at the kitchen table making up new rules for how to play them. Ulaume sat reading a book on chickens. He heard the girl moan and put down his book. She had rolled onto her back and cast off the blankets, one forearm pressed against her eyes. Ulaume stood up. This was the moment he’d both dreaded and looked forward to with curiosity.
‘Can you understand me, girl?’ he said.
For some moments, she did not lower her arm, but when she did her eyes were black and furious and terrified. She glanced around, clearly still too weak to move, but even so seeking an avenue of escape.
‘We mean you no harm,’ Ulaume said, which even to him sounded unconvincing. ‘I am a friend of Pellaz Cevarro. You know him?’
‘He’s dead,’ she croaked, her voice sounding rusty with disuse.
‘Not any more – apparently,’ Ulaume answered, ‘but then, I’m not sure. He has spoken to me here. You are his sister, yes?’
‘There’s nothing left for you here,’ the girl rasped. ‘Go.’
‘I am not here to take anything,’ Ulaume said. ‘I came here only looking for sanctuary for myself and Lileem, the harling – the child. We are alone. I am not a warrior. I don’t even have a tribe, but I knew your brother.’
‘I have no brothers,’ she said, ‘only monsters. They are gone.’
Ulaume drew a deep breath. ‘A har called Cal brought Pellaz to my tribe. Pell had been incepted to Wraeththu at another settlement. He came to us for training.’
The girl turned onto her side and put her hands over her ears.
Ulaume sighed deeply. ‘You are right. He is no longer your brother. He cast off all that he was the moment he became Wraeththu. There is no point in talking about it.’
He turned to Lileem who was sitting absolutely still, no doubt taking in every word. ‘Ask your friend if she wishes to eat. You can prepare something for her.’
‘Child stealer!’ hissed the girl, still with her back to him.
‘I did not steal Lileem,’ Ulaume said coldly. ‘He is not human, whatever you think. He was born of Wraeththu and is as much your enemy as I am. His blood poisoned you.’ He did not wait for a reply but left the room.
Outside, in the murmuring garden, he took deep breaths to calm himself. He must not let this human affect him, if indeed she was still human. Creatures stalked this place and none of them were normal. He’d seen something vile in the Cevarro house and he must find out what it was. The girl had spoken of monsters. He had seen one. But where did he progress from here? He did not expect the girl to take to him, it would be unrealistic to imagine so. But she held the answers. She had the history in her.
Ulaume narrowed his eyes and scanned the night. He sensed a dark cloud hanging over the hill, although the night was clear.
‘Her name,’ Lileem said, ‘is Mima.’
Ulaume and Lileem were sitting in the garden. The girl would not move from her place by the stove, other than to visit the small bathroom off the kitchen. She had lived there, a silent, brooding presence, for another three days. She would not acknowledge Ulaume existed, and he pretended she wasn’t there.
‘You must ask her something,’ Ulaume said. ‘I want you to ask her to examine her own body. Ask her if there are any changes.’
‘Why?’
‘I think you incepted her accidentally.’
Lileem grinned. ‘Made her like me? Is that possible?’
‘How should I know? It’s as much of a mystery to me as to you. But perhaps, if we find out, we’ll learn a little about how you might be one day.’
Ulaume’s heart clenched at the sudden flowering of delight and hope in Lileem’s face. ‘You can also ask her how she feels, if she’s noted any differences about her perceptions, that is, how she sees the world and hears it, and what she does not hear or see but somehow knows.’
Lileem nodded vigorously. ‘I will! I will!’ He hugged Ulaume fiercely. ‘Thank you, Lormy. Thank you for giving this to me.’
Ulaume laughed uncomfortably, remembering his own bitter thoughts at the poolside before Lileem’s accident. ‘I did nothing: you did.’
‘You could have left her to die. You helped her live.’
‘That is true. Perhaps I am a nicer har than I think I am.’
Ulaume waited for Lileem to come back to him with answers, and was therefore surprised when Mima herself addressed him in the kitchen the following morning. It was preceded by a punch in the face, which took him even more by surprise. As he was picking himself up from the floor, fully prepared to defend himself in the most vigorous manner, Mima pushed back her hair and said, ‘The child says something has been done to me, the same thing you do to boys. Is that true?’
Ulaume merely flared his nostrils. ‘When you can behave with dignity and courtesy I may be moved to answer your queries.’ He stalked out into the garden and began picking berries from a rather straggling bush.
Mima followed him and hovered behind him. Ulaume hid a smile. He could sense Pellaz strongly. After a while, Mima said, ‘There are changes. I am different.’
Ulaume waited a moment, then glanced round at her. ‘That is perhaps unfortunate. I can do nothing to help you now and Lileem is only a child.’
‘What do you mean?’
He shrugged carelessly. ‘Well, in Wraeththu, you have to take aruna after inception. But no females become Wraeththu, so you’re probably not har. I don’t know what you are.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Explain.’
‘Aruna is sex. You need it to finish the inception. But there’s no one for you to do it with. You are not har. I can sense it. Maybe you don’t even need it. Who knows?’ He turned back to the berry-picking.
‘I am not the same as I was. Is this what you are, what Lileem is?’
Ulaume shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure what Lileem is. He was exposed by his parents in the desert to die, so you can be sure he’s not normal.’
Mima screwed up her eyes, rubbed her face in confusion. ‘The child is a girl, anyone can see that.’
‘Well, perhaps that is the reason then. But if so, he – or she – is not a human girl. He’s a freak, and so are you.’
‘I do not feel like a freak,’ Mima said and her tone caused Ulaume to stop what he was doing and pay her more attention.
She squatted down in front of him. ‘May we talk?’
‘If you can keep your hands to yourself, yes.’
‘I have lived a nightmare, can you understand that?’
He nodded.
‘I have lived in a dark world, watching myself. Whatever has just happened to me brought me back. I awoke a few days ago and I was back in the real worl
d, no longer just a spectral observer. It has taken me some days to accept this, for it had been my decision to leave my own mind.’
‘What happened?’ Ulaume asked.
Mima stood up, and gazed down upon her old home, hands on hip. ‘We were attacked, as many people warned us we would be. Nearly everyone was killed. They took my brothers, as Pell had been taken, but one I managed to help escape.’
There was a silence, which Ulaume intuited Mima wanted him to fill. He had a history and answers that she desperately wanted too. ‘Did you take him after he’d been incepted?’
She made a sound of exasperation and kicked the dirt. ‘They had done something to Terez, yes, if that is inception. He was very ill. We’d heard months before there might be some physical change involved in becoming Wraeththu, but I’d not believed it. Not until I was forced to.’
‘I think I’ve seen him,’ Ulaume said. ‘You shouldn’t have done that. Do you know what you have done?’
‘Know? I tried to save someone I loved, after everyone else was dead. Is that so wrong?’
Ulaume stood up also. ‘Yes, in this case. If you have lived in a dark world, then he exists in a grotesque half world. I shudder to imagine.’
‘Do you! What happened to Terez, what happened to me, to my parents, to my sisters and brothers, it is beyond understanding, beyond hell. I had to leave it all behind.’
‘Yet you survived,’ Ulaume said. ‘In that, you are very similar to Pell.’
Mima grimaced. ‘He chose that life. I hated him for it. I hated him for leaving us.’
‘You shouldn’t. The alternative might have been another Terez. At the very least, you would have lost him anyway, and probably to a barbaric tribe. You should know that he received the very best and most gentle inception. He was trained well, so well in fact, it appears he may have survived physical death. He still cares about you, when so many hara have cast off their human past completely. He has spoken to me of you.’
‘Did he send you here?’