‘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.
But Mima said, ‘No! Get out of here.’ She went to her brother and wrapped her arms around him.
Lileem left the room without looking back, heart pounding. She stood outside the door in the main hallway of the house and saw Ulaume sitting on the stairs. Together they listened to Terez sob in a choked strangled way for about fifteen minutes, and by then, the vegetables had begun to burn.
Mima opened the kitchen door and surprised Lileem and Ulaume who virtually had their ears pressed against it. ‘You’d better come in and salvage what you can,’ she said.
When Flick eventually came home, Ulaume and Lileem were engaged in cooking with rather more industry than it required and Terez was sitting stunned at the table, with Mima holding one of his hands. How this evening would progress, Lileem could not foresee.
She and
Ulaume set the table and dished up the food, which was partly peppered with charred fragments. A paralysing atmosphere gripped the room. Flick looked mortified, and none of them had yet told him exactly what had happened. He was sensitive and must have guessed for himself.
Terez roused himself to eat. He behaved like a polite child, which Lileem found really confusing. She wished he’d get back to normal. She wished Mima had kept her mouth shut. What was the point of telling him that? To absolve her own guilt: that was the point, she decided. But maybe Mima was right, and the only way she and Terez could ever be friends was if he knew the truth. That lie gnawed away at the foundations of their relationship and only by gouging it out could the situation between them improve.
Lileem conspired with Ulaume in an attempt to bring some kind of normalcy to the occasion. They tried to crack jokes and conduct their usual banter, but it was difficult. Lileem wondered what was wrong with Flick. Was he worried that if Terez became more of a regular fixture in their lives, he’d rekindle his relationship with Ulaume? It had seemed so intense between them after Terez’s recovery. Now, perhaps remembering that time also, Flick was sombre and appeared to be only half in the room with them.
Before the meal was finished, Terez pushed his plate away from him. ‘Mima, can we talk?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
He stood up and she led him into the yard at the back of the house.
‘She told him,’ Lileem hissed at Flick, the moment the door was closed. ‘He knows what she did.’
‘Oh,’ Flick said. ‘That’s… bad.’
‘It’s not going to change anything,’ Ulaume said.
Flick smiled weakly. He took one of Ulaume’s hands in his own and kissed it. ‘You know I love you, don’t you?’
Ulaume laughed. ‘What? Has everyhar gone mad tonight?’
Flick said nothing.
‘I know,’ Ulaume said. ‘Relax. I love you too.’
The evening was cold now and the stars looked hard and sharp in the clear sky. Terez stared up at them and Mima stood behind him, hugging herself. She wished she’d put her coat on.
‘You should have told me before,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know that,’ she said. ‘I really didn’t know what to do for the best. You were so angry and you were… you were not the kind of har to trust. You were nothing like the annoying but cute little brother I’d once known.’
Terez smiled mordantly at that. ‘I’m not going to ask why you did it. I know why. You were human and you didn’t understand. You wanted to keep a living relative.’
‘That’s it. Exactly.’
‘But you should have told me. Another thing you don’t understand is what a relief it is to know the truth. I thought the Uigenna just abandoned me. You let me think that.’
‘Terez, I can’t apologise for that, because I did not act in malice. The Uigenna are bad news, but I didn’t really know that until after Flick and Ulaume came and told me what they knew. What I did to you was a tragic mistake, a desperate act. That’s all there is to it. Believe me, I tortured myself about it for years, but ultimately I know there is no point to that. And if the two of us have any future, it has to be in truth. It’s always lain between us, this dark secret and now it’s out.’
Terez sighed deeply. ‘I know. The strange thing is, it’s irrelevant now, but it was a shock. I didn’t expect to hear that.’
‘Are you angry?’
‘I don’t know. I was just back there for a while, that’s all.’ He turned to her fully. ‘I haven’t had a normal life, Mima. I’m an outsider, as you are, for different reasons. But I am har, through and through, and the fact that the feeling could spill from me in that way tonight only proves to me I’m right.’ He paused. ‘We both suffered. We were both in darkness for a long time. But if none of it had happened, you might be dead and I might be with the Uigenna, which I now realise would not have been the best path.’
‘With the benefit of hindsight, we could say that.’
He put his head to one side and closed one eye, a gesture reminiscent of the boy he’d once been. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘It’s good here. Bit tame, maybe, but safe.’
He nodded. ‘Lileem told me you took aruna with a har. Is that right?’
‘Yes. But… it’s complicated. I take aruna with Lileem now, nohar else.’
‘Oh.’ He seemed surprised. ‘You are har, though, you and she?’
Mima smiled at him. ‘Yes, in our own way. We’re not chesna, Terez. We’re really close and I love her, but it’s not… We’re just finding a way. Comfort.’
He smiled back and for long moments, they held each other’s gaze. Then, he said, ‘Thanks, Mima.’
She inclined her head. ‘Sorry I ruined your life.’
They both laughed, hesitantly, then fell silent. ‘Come here,’ Terez said, and held out his arms.
Mima pressed herself against him, held him tight. ‘Don’t ever believe them,’ she murmured, kissing his hair. ‘Family does matter. Ours does.’
First thing the following morning, Mima did not go to work, but instead took Terez to Exalan in the government offices at Kalalim, to make sure it was acceptable for her brother to become part of their household. After speaking with Terez briefly, Exalan interviewed Mima in private. She told him that Terez knew nothing of the Kamagrian and believed herself and Lileem to be a strange kind of har.
‘For the time being, let him think that,’ Exalan advised.
‘But if he lives here, he’s bound to notice differences in the parazha and hara around him. I’m not sure how to deal with that. What is the official line?’
Exalan smiled. ‘This is a rare circumstance – relatives from the past turning up – so there are no protocols for dealing with it. I will speak to Opalexian about it. But for now, if you are happy to be responsible for your brother, I can see no reason why he should not become part of your household. We are not Gelaming, Mima. We don’t want to make harsh rules. The happiness of our citizens is of prime importance. I trust you will act wisely, should any difficult situations arise, and I am here to advise you, should you need me.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Take Terez to work with you. I’m sure you can find something to occupy his time.’
‘I will.’
Mima was unsure how Terez would feel about this, as he’d been a loner for so long. Would he be prepared to fit into the community and work for it? Now that she’d truly found him again, she was anxious about losing him. But he seemed to accept the idea without reserve and said, ‘It’ll be like old times, working the land.’
‘One thing you might notice,’ Mima was driven to say. ‘Shilalama is a sanctuary. Many of the hara here have had difficulties: strange inceptions, with unusual results. Many are similar to Lileem and me. It’s polite not to ask questions or pry. Will you remember that?’
‘I will be the spirit of discretion.’
‘As I said last night, this place can feel tame sometimes, but the hara here are a good tribe. There’s nohar at the top wielding a big sword, and no pompous autocrats throwing their weight around. Therefore, co-operation and harmony are very important. We value these things. Even if the sweetness gets up your nose sometimes, just take a deep breath and smile back sweetly. Got that?’
Terez laughed. ‘Absolutely. I can’t wait.’
Lileem was concerned about Flick. He did not go out on patrol that day and after Ulaume had gone to work, went back to bed. Lileem went up to see him and he complained of feeling unwell. Hara were rarely sick. ‘What’s wrong?’ Lileem said. ‘You were fine before coming home last night. It’s Terez, isn’t it?’
‘Partly,’ Flick mumbled.
‘Don’t worry,’ Lileem said, stroking his shoulder. ‘He’s not going to take Ulaume off you.’
Flick laughed in a strange, cruel kind of way. ‘No.’
‘You should go out again today. It’s a bit overcast, but I’m sure it’ll brighten up later
. The mountain air will do you good. Take Astral for a wild gallop. Don’t lie here moping.’
‘I want to lie down in a small confined space,’ Flick said. ‘Leave it at that, will you, Lee? Hadn’t you better be going? You’ll be late for work.’
Lileem stood up with a sigh. ‘OK, but I expect you to make us a superb feast for tonight.’
Flick merely grunted and turned on his side. ‘We should be careful of the Cevarros,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You heard.’ He pulled the quilt over his head.
Every day at work, Lileem waited impatiently for the moment when she could run back home. All she could think about was seeing Terez, thoughts which she kept to herself. Terez appeared to have adapted well to his new life, and although he had a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, which conjured the most intense silences known to the world, he was far from being the damaged har they had known in Megalithica. He flirted with Lileem, and maybe it was just jokey affectionate play, but sometimes, when Lileem looked at him, the expression in his eyes stilled the breath in her throat.
Lileem believed that Mima would be the difficult one over Terez, but it seemed that Flick had assumed the role, and that was – well – it was inconvenient. Flick seemed to be changing, becoming introverted and secretive. One night, Lileem even overheard him having a heated argument with Ulaume, which was so unusual it was shocking. Ulaume wanted to know was what was wrong with his chesnari, but when he tried to talk about it, Flick simply lost his temper. This was not the Flick they all knew and loved, and even Ulaume was becoming strained and tense.
As the season flowered into summer and the mountains began to sing an exultant song of abundance and lushness, Flick sometimes stayed out all night. Ulaume didn’t argue with him any more, and this seemed to ease the situation at home, but Lileem could tell that Ulaume was bleeding inside about it. He would never be alone with Terez, clearly convinced this was the root of the problem. But Flick often wasn’t there to notice this show of loyalty.
‘It makes no sense to me,’ Ulaume once confided to Lileem, when the two of them sat up drinking one weekend night. Their yard was a riot of perfumed flowers and the warm night air was full of their scent. ‘Chesna is not about being possessive or frightened or threatened. It’s a state of being. Hara take aruna with others all the time, whether in a chesna partnership or not. I know Flick. We all do. It’s not like him to be this way.’