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 i
t 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.
As he thought this, the leash jerked. Ulaume gulped water and floundered a little. Stupid har! His first instinct was to grab the leash and pull back, haul his hated keeper into the water, but he realised this would not be a good move. If he failed to overpower the har, he could end up dead. Now, he was being pulled back to the bank of the waterhole. Breaking through the water’s surface, Ulaume coughed and blinked. He pushed wet hair from his eyes. Above him, standing on the bank, he saw a tall dark figure that looked like a manifestation of Aruhani himself. It seemed to emanate dark light. This figure crouched down and held out a hand. Ulaume took it and a familiar sensation of rushing dark energy coursed up his arm. Terez had returned to the Uigenna, then. Ulaume saw the lion cowering some feet away and a bundle of cloth and limbs that looked very much like a dead har. It appeared Terez had not returned to be a part of the tribe.
‘Terez,’ Ulaume said. ‘That is you, isn’t it?’
Terez hauled him from the water. ‘Yes. They’ve made a mess of you.’ This observation was delivered without feeling.
‘Thanks to you. Have you killed that har? Why? This isn’t a rescue, is it?’
‘Yes it is,’ Terez said. ‘Stop gabbing and take that leash off.’
Ulaume did so. ‘Well, well. Did guilt actually get to you?’
Terez exhaled impatiently through his nose. ‘I have been observing the troupe for a couple of days. Needed to be sure of where you were being held. Now, we will release Flick. Strip the Uigenna of his clothes and dress yourself. Be quick.’
Ulaume wondered whether this might be a dream: dressing himself in the clothes of a dead har, rescued by a living dead har. His keeper had worn a tasselled scarf around his head. Ulaume took this and beneath it hid his butchered hair. He unleashed the lion and hoped it might go free, but it probably wouldn’t. It would sit there shivering until somehar came for it and discovered its keeper was dead.
‘Do you know where they’re keeping Flick?’ Ulaume asked.
‘More or less, but it’ll be easy to find out precisely.’
‘I hope you can do it, then,’ Ulaume said. ‘My senses aren’t what they should be at the moment.’
‘Yes.’ Terez threw back his head, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. After a moment, he opened his eyes again and without glancing at Ulaume said, ‘This way. Keep to the shadows.’
There w
as little security in the Uigenna camp, because they clearly didn’t think they had anything in this area to secure themselves against. Some hara were busy erecting tepees, building fires and cooking food. Others were attending to animals, horses and the small flock of sheep that accompanied the troupe. There were no idle hands. Ulaume and Terez picked up a bale of fodder each they found in a pile next to a newly erected tepee and made their way round the edge of the camp, keeping a distance from everyhar else. Flick was being kept apart from the main camp, which was most convenient. Even as they approached, Ulaume could feel the familiar warmth of Flick’s spirit, and it was like coming home, even though he could tell Flick was far from happy.
Two Uigenna guards were stationed at the entrance to the tepee. Terez called to them and they both looked his way. Ulaume had taken a knife from the lion keeper. His strength had returned with his hope. In an instant, he leapt forward and cut a har’s throat. Terez dealt with the other one by twisting his neck. Ulaume heard the damp snap of bone. Terez then finished off the har whose throat Ulaume had cut. It was over so quickly. Together, Ulaume and Terez dragged the bodies behind the tepee, before anyhar noticed something was amiss.
‘Get Flick,’ Terez said. ‘Meet me back at the waterhole. I’ll fetch horses.’ He backed away into the shadows.
Ulaume went into the tepee and saw Flick crouched on a large silk cushion. He was pale, with dark circles beneath his eyes, dressed up like a Kakkahaar whore. Ulaume could not imagine what he might have lived through over the past few days.
‘Come!’ Ulaume said. ‘Now Flick. We’re leaving.’
Flick looked confused for a moment. ‘Ulaume?’ He stared at the fresh blood on Ulaume’s shirt.
‘Quick, no time for talk. Come on.’ Ulaume grabbed hold of Flick’s left hand and dragged him out of the tepee, desperate to get him beyond the light of the camp torches. He was afraid that somehar would pass the back of the tepee and spot the dead bodies. Then the alarm would be raised.