‘It is my brother,’ Mima said.
‘You seem to have an inexhaustible supply.’
Flick had never heard Exalan be sarcastic before, nor use such a cold tone. His usual guise was of benign and humble servant of the city.
‘It is my brother, Pellaz,’ Mima said, with some defiance.
The tall parage stepped forward. ‘We are aware of his identity,’ she said.
Exalan made a respectful gesture, ‘May I present Opalexian to you, High Priestess and First Parage of this city.’
Mima ducked her head a little, but it appeared awkward and grudging. She was ready for a fight. Flick realised how immense a force the Cevarros could be if they closed ranks. Because Pellaz wanted strong hara around him, he would really benefit from having Mima back in his life. He needed Terez and Dorado too, probably. Flick wondered if the Tigron had realised this for himself yet.
‘Facts,’ said Opalexian in a smooth, reasonable voice. Her tone was low, seductive. She reminded Flick very strongly of someone, but he couldn’t think who. ‘Last night, there was a severe etheric disturbance in my garden. You investigated the phenomenon, were virtually first on the scene. You reported nothing. In the light of day, my staff searched the area and uncovered an amount of clothing and some very strange trace residue of a paranormal event.’
She paused, but Mima offered nothing, her face set into an inscrutable expression.
‘Almost simultaneously with this discovery, I become aware of a very powerful harish force in this city. Its signature is unique. It is the Tigron of Immanion.’
Again a pause, and again Mima’s silence.
Opalexian sighed through her nose. ‘I see. I ask myself if these two events are connected. Where are the other members of your household?’
‘We were not told we all had to come,’ Flick said.
‘Where are they?’ Opalexian asked.
‘We don’t know,’ Flick said.
Opalexian stared at him, and he was sure she could see right into his mind, even though he wasn’t aware of mind touch. ‘I can only take a dim view of the Tigron being invited to my city. You are all aware that it is the wish of the Roselane for the Gelaming, if not Wraeththu as a whole, to remain ignorant of their existence. The Tigron’s presence here puts every citizen in jeopardy. You were given sanctuary here, a home and a life. Is this how you repay us? I am waiting for your explanation, if indeed there is one, beyond the fact that Mima Cevarro cannot surrender her old human ties.’
‘No I cannot!’ Mima said, and Flick put a hand on her arm to restrain her.
‘We can explain,’ Flick said. ‘This is not how it seems. As you know, Pellaz consented to come here. He is sitting outside this room like a common har. I hope you understand the message in that. It is not his intention to cause you trouble. He is here because of me, and because of his family.’
‘Tel-an-Kaa has informed me of the circumstances surrounding your journey to Shilalama. I am aware of Mima’s and Terez’s connection with the Tigron, and of yours. But in this city, all hara, parazha and humans are equal. Such weighty connections have no bearing here, and I had hoped you all felt the same. You accepted our way of life and have benefited from it. Where is Terez and the parage, Lileem?’
‘I think you know,’ Mima said.
‘I would like to hear it from you.’
‘We believe they took aruna together,’ Flick said, ‘with the inevitable consequences.’
‘And you summoned the Tigron here to ask for his aid?’ Opalexian enquired.
‘No,’ Flick said. ‘That was coincidence. I have been meeting him in the mountains for some time. I told him nothing about the Kamagrian, not until last night.’
Opalexian took a deep breath, clearly having difficulty controlling herself. Flick sensed she’d like to bawl them out, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it and destroy the illusion of the character she had built. ‘It is forbidden for hara and parazha to become intimate,’ she said. ‘You all know this.’
‘Sometimes, feelings get in the way of common sense,’ Flick said. ‘That is the only explanation I can give.’
‘Your friends are lost to you now.’ Opalexian fixed Mima with a cold gaze. ‘I hope you realise you cannot risk doing something similar in an attempt to find them. If you do, you will all die.’
‘They are not dead,’ Mima said.
‘Effectively, they are,’ Opalexian said. ‘The matter is closed, and you will deal with your grief as you see fit. Now, as to the other question…’
‘Pellaz is not your enemy,’ Flick butted in. ‘He will speak for himself, of course, but in my opinion, it would be in your best interests to befriend him now. He will not betray you if you offer him loyalty.’
Opalexian hissed and seemed to grow taller, her hair lifting from her head like a cat’s fur. Flick realised who she reminded him of now: Thiede.
‘I do not need some little har telling me how to conduct my affairs,’ she said. ‘I offer loyalty to none but my own tribe. The Gelaming are warmongers and tyrants. Their worldview has no empathy with mine.’
‘Pellaz is an individual,’ Flick said. ‘He is not the whole tribe of Gelaming. He has been placed into a role by Thiede. He is not entirely happy with it. He needs allies.’
Opalexian raised an eyebrow, and Flick realised that with those last three words he had somehow captured her attention, and perhaps her co-operation. It came to him as a blinding revelation: Thiede and Opalexian were known to one another, and they were not in accord.
‘I will speak to him,’ she said, ‘but first, I want the entire story from you two, with no details omitted – and, trust me, if you lie or prevaricate, I will know. We have methods of extracting information from the mind, so I suggest you co-operate willingly. It will save time, trouble and possible hurt in the future.’
‘Your parazha have no idea what you’re really like, do they!’ Mima said. ‘Humble priestess, my ass!’
Opalexian smiled at this. ‘You are correct,’ she said. ‘Become accustomed to it.’
Chapter Thirty Three
Lileem came to her senses, buried naked in sand. She was lying on her back and only her face wasn’t covered in the scouring, shifting granules. She opened her eyes to a sky blistered with huge stars, with the ammonite whorls of spinning galaxies, with great nebulas of purple and blue gases. Comets scrawled across the night, in a thousand different trails of light. The firmament was alive above her.
Before attempting to get up, she flexed each limb and mentally scanned her body for injury, but found none. If anything, she felt more alert and vital than she had for years. I am alive, she thought, and I am in another realm.
The landscape was immense, huge cliffs and pinnacles of obsidian rock rising all around her. They were so much younger than the mountains of her home plane, roughly sculpted, their sides raw and sharp. The sand beneath her feet was silver grey in the light of the stars, and it glittered with mica. There was no moon, but even so the light was brilliant. The air smelled of the same strange scent she’d experienced during aruna with Terez: there was no way to describe it, other than mustily sweet, but not unpleasant. At least she could breathe it. She hadn’t considered that important fact when she’d planned to come here: the air might have been toxic. Was this not another sign that she was meant to come?
She must look for Terez. Not for one moment did she think he was hurt or dead. She was in a deep valley that looked as if it had been gouged from the rock by a gargantuan machine or perhaps a glacier. The sides of the cliffs were scored with horizontal crevices. There was no sign of life, either of plant or animal. Lileem began to walk around, carefully scanning the ground. She wondered how, if the air was breathable, there was no life. It didn’t make sense.
She found Terez in a hole near to where she’d woken up. He was conscious and unhurt, but very disorientated. Lileem offered him an arm and he managed to haul himself out. For some minutes, he had to sit on the ground, breathing deeply. Lileem put he
r hands on his shoulders and blasted him with healing energy. Eventually, he reached up to touch one of her hands and said, ‘I’m OK.’
Lileem stood up. ‘We did it,’ she said.
Terez looked around himself. ‘Anyone else here?’
‘Doesn’t seem so. We have to find the opening in the ground we saw. It must be around here somewhere.’
Terez stood up beside her, caught hold of her shoulder to steady himself. ‘What is this place?’
‘I think it’s another realm of existence, another dimension,’ she said. ‘Look at the sky.’
Together, they gazed at the stars. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Terez said. ‘Amazing.’
They walked up the valley for hours and then the sun came up. That, in itself, was magnificent. It was an incandescent inferno, so much bigger than the sun they knew. It rose above the horizon like a god. They could hear it: the sound of a thousand furnaces igniting at once. Before it rose fully, they could see white flames shooting from its surface, but once it had risen above the mountains its light was blinding. The black cliffs lost their colour. It was like being in a void of white light. Terez and Lileem held onto each other’s hands, because they could hardly see each other. They had become like cloudy ghosts.
‘We should be burned,’ Terez said. ‘We should be blind.’
‘But we’re not,’ Lileem said.
It was difficult to keep travelling, because they could barely see anything. Strange how in this place, it was easy to see at night, but the opposite during the day. Lileem could feel the heat on her skin, as she could smell the air, but it was not uncomfortable. She wondered whether the journey had changed them somehow, made them able to withstand the unfamiliar elements.
At mid-day, it became impossible to keep moving. They kept bumping into rocks. Terez noticed a faint shadow to their right and when they went to it, they found a narrow cave entrance. Once inside, they could see each other again. They groped their way deep into the rock and then sat down on the sandy floor. It should have been as black as pitch in there, but it wasn’t. They could see each other quite easily.
‘I’m not hungry or thirsty,’ Terez said. ‘Are you?’
Lileem thought about it. ‘No. We should be. Neither have I needed to take a pee or anything.’
‘Nor me. I don’t feel hot or cold either. Something has happened to us.’
‘We’ll just have to hope it’s reversible.’
‘Of course we might be technically dead,’ Terez said. ‘We might be spirits now.’
‘That’s a possibility,’ Lileem conceded. ‘Strange. I’m not that bothered.’
‘I wonder what Mima and the others are thinking,’ Terez said. ‘Will they have guessed what happened?’
‘I think so,’ Lileem replied. ‘Mima will guess. I said a few things to her recently.’
Terez wrinkled up his nose: an unrestrained childish expression. ‘You know, I’ve never felt this good in my skin before. Nothing is uncomfortable and my mind is just – hell, how do I describe it? – just peaceful.’
‘Perhaps we are dead, then.’
Terez nodded. ‘Yeah.’ He smiled. ‘What a way to go!’
They did not feel a change of temperature on their skins, but they knew that night was falling, because the light faded in the cavern. Terez led the way back outside and as before the brilliant sky enacted its otherworld carnival overhead. Most importantly, they could now see they had wandered into an area where, even if creatures no longer inhabited it, at one time they had created buildings. An enormous structure of obsidian rose from the sand at the end of the valley. It was roughly pyramidal in shape, and many turrets, towers and open air walkways clustered all over it. The structure was not just an edifice; it was a mountain, carved from the glassy black rock. Beyond it, lay the ocean: a vast expanse of metallic water that shimmered with the reflections of stars.
The gates to the building, or perhaps city, were dwarfed by the size of the structure above them, but when Lileem and Terez reached them, they found the entrance was at least fifty feet high. Doors of obsidian stood open and sand had blown onto the floor beyond.
Inside was a vast chamber, with many dark entrances leading off it. It was empty but for a seated black statue, so huge it was impossible to see its face from below. Each of its feet was the size of a modest nayati. Was this a king or a god? It reminded Lileem of her vision of the Tigron. To walk around it would take a long time. Lileem touched the stone of the dais: it towered a good ten feet above her head. ‘This is not what we’re looking for,’ she said. ‘We need to find the entrance to the underground place.’
‘Maybe it’s beneath here,’ Terez said. ‘We should look.’
‘It’ll take us a hundred years to explore all those passages,’ Lileem said.
‘The way I feel, that won’t be a problem.’
‘Time might not exist here, not in the same way we know it.’
‘Exactly.’
It felt strange not to eat and drink, because those little rituals provided much of what anchored you to reality, to mundane life, to progression of the hours. Neither did Lileem or Terez feel the need to sleep. They explored the building for what seemed like days, and the sun did not rise again. There was no furniture, no other decoration or carvings, no indication of who had built the place or why: just endless chambers and corridors that would sometimes lead them out onto a balcony that overlooked the endless ocean. There were lots of stairways leading up, but none leading down. If there was a netherworld to this strange building, it was difficult to find.
Eventually, they found their way back to the main chamber and went outside. A strange purple hue was cast over the land, and the stars were dimmer, which perhaps indicated the sun was about to rise again.
‘How long have we been here?’ Lileem wondered aloud. ‘Weeks, months?’
These were questions that did not require an answer. In their own realm, more time might have passed, or none at all. ‘We should investigate around the edge of the building,’ Terez said.
Not once had either of them suggested to the other that they should try to return to their own reality. They were consumed by the desire to find what they’d come to find. Beneath the ground lay a secret that was waiting for them to discover it. Sometimes they could hear it whispering to them in wordless songs.
The sun, when it rose, was not the same one they’d seen before. It was far dimmer: a violet globe surrounded by a crimson nimbus. It dyed the sky a magnificent imperial colour and at the edge of its influence, the jewels of the heavens still shone. It was this sun that revealed the entrance to the hidden place that Terez and Lileem were seeking.
In the light of this new sun, the world appeared different. Lileem could discern details on the outside of the building she had not seen before: carvings of what looked like an ancient forgotten alphabet. The purple shadows across the gargantuan walls picked out faint outlines of what might have been depictions of creatures, but the light concealed as much as it revealed, for it had a shifting elusive quality.
While she was examining the walls, Terez scouted around at ground level. It was he who uncovered the dark shaft leading downwards, its entrance partially covered by fallen boulders and moving shadows. The entrance led into a down-sloping passageway, which was triangular in shape. ‘This is what we came for,’ Lileem said and took the first steps into the darkness.
Beyond the meagre light from outside, the walls exuded a faint radiance, so it was possible to see a few feet in all directions. Lileem’s heart had increased in pace, and she realised it was the first time she’d been aware of her body’s physical functions since she’d arrived in this strange realm.
The passage led deep below the ground, and as they progressed Lileem felt as if her head was under pressure. It was not a headache exactly, but more a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety. She mentioned it to Terez who said he felt nauseous.
‘It’s almost as if something’s trying to make us turn back,’ he said.
??
?Do we carry on?’ Lileem asked him. ‘It might be dangerous.’
‘Of course we carry on. If we’re dead, we can’t die twice.’
They joked about being dead, but Lileem didn’t really believe they were. Surely, if that were true, they wouldn’t care about anything from their previous lives. They’d just drift off to become part of the cosmos itself, or else be in some kind of afterlife with other spirits. Perhaps it was time she worked out her idea of what the afterlife might be. She was sure it wasn’t this.
It was impossible for them to determine how long they walked along the sloping passageway, but eventually they came to a circular chamber, around ten feet wide, and with a low ceiling. The walls of this chamber were carved with various lines and circles, which again suggested a language of some kind. Lileem walked around the chamber, one hand against the smooth walls. The place was built of a greenish soapy stone, with veins of darkness running through it. ‘Where is the light coming from?’ she said. ‘It must be from the stone itself, but it doesn’t seem that way. It just is.’
‘What was that?’ Terez snapped.
‘What was what?’
‘A sound…’
They both stood still, ears straining. Then Lileem heard it: a distant thump from far below their feet. Simultaneously, the floor moved. At first Lileem thought it was some kind of earth tremor, but then she realised the floor had begun to drop. The chamber was a moving platform, and now they were going down.
Lileem put her arms around Terez. ‘This is it,’ she said. ‘For good or bad, we’re going to find out…’
‘What we’re here for,’ he finished. They held each other tightly.
The platform moved down at a slow, regular rate, with a faint scraping sound. Below them, they could still hear the rhythmic thumping, which perhaps derived from the mechanisms that operated the platform. ‘Someone or something must be working this thing,’ Terez said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Lileem said. ‘I think it’s automatic. It just started up because we stepped onto it.’