The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,112

leaning on it, then went to the table and put down the trays. ‘Listen, I must speak quickly. Mima, all of you, guard your thoughts. Guard them well, at every moment. Terez is something more than we all imagined.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mima hissed.

‘Don’t let him know what you did, Mima. Never!’ Ulaume said. ‘He would hate you for it. He wanted to be Wraeththu and he is angry at what was taken from him.’

Mima turned away. Lileem only stared up at Ulaume, her face white, her eyes wide.

‘What are you trying to tell us?’ Flick asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Ulaume said. ‘Just that we’ve got more on our hands than we bargained for. Terez is no addled, wandering soul. He’s back with a vengeance.’

‘He will never be like you,’ Lileem said, in a small voice. ‘I told you that.’

‘You didn’t listen to me, did you,’ Ulaume said to Flick. ‘I cautioned against this. Now, we must cope with the consequences.’

And the consequences made themselves known swiftly. Terez appeared shortly after Ulaume had come downstairs. He had taken a bath and dressed himself in some clothes that Ulaume had found for him. Flick uttered some awkward remarks about making dinner, but Terez ignored him. He spoke directly to Mima. ‘We will leave tomorrow,’ he said.

Mima looked flustered, which was not a usual state for her. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I am going to seek my brothers. I acknowledge that, because you have been changed, you should fall under my protection. You will come with me.’

‘No,’ Mima said. ‘I don’t want to do that.’

‘That is your choice,’ Terez said, ‘but I think it is what Pell would have wanted.’

‘He’s dead,’ Mima said. ‘We have no real proof otherwise.’

‘You have no idea what death is,’ Terez said. ‘We will find him.’

‘How?’ Mima said. ‘It’s a big world out there. Dorado could be dead too, for all we know. Stay here a while, heal yourself. Then think about the future.’

While Mima was speaking, Ulaume silently begged her to let Terez go. Nothing but trouble would come of him remaining among them. They had done their job in bringing back his mind, now they should let him do what he wanted. But Mima blocked out his call. She was obsessed, full of guilt.

‘This place is not fit to live in,’ Terez said. ‘It should be allowed to return to dust. It is wrong what you are doing here. If you want to survive, you must learn to become har, and you won’t do that here.’

‘What if I can’t become har?’ Mima snapped. ‘What if I’m safer here, where hara don’t want to kill me?’

‘Nowhere is safe,’ Terez said, ‘not without a tribe. I learned this before I was taken into darkness.’

‘Then go!’ Mima cried, then shook her head, raking her hands through her hair. ‘But not yet. Please. You are the only one left. Stay here a while with me. Help me become har, if that’s what I should do.’

Ulaume exchanged a glance with Flick, who stood mortified by the sink. Neither of them knew how to defuse this situation. They had brought something into the house and it was not what they’d thought it was.

Flick went out into the garden and Ulaume followed him. Now, there was a reticence between them, as if their night of bliss had never been.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ Ulaume said. He wanted to take Flick in his arms, but sensed Flick didn’t want it. No doubt he was repulsed by the aura of Terez’s essence, which must be hanging around Ulaume in a foul cloud.

‘It’s all right,’ Flick said, bending down to pluck out some weeds from the flower beds. ‘I know what you have to do.’

‘He just needs strength,’ Ulaume said.

‘I know. It was me who suggested it. I’m OK, really.’

‘Flick.’

Flick sighed and stood up. He turned to face Ulaume and his expression was resigned. ‘We had a job to do. We did it. We had fun doing it. Now, you have another job to do.’

The coldness in his tone made Ulaume’s heart freeze. ‘Fine,’ he said and went back into the house.

He did not see Flick crouch down again and put his hands against his face.

One of the first things Terez did was to go down among the dwellings below the hill and set fire to them. Flick was furious about this pointless waste, and realised that he was watching his dreams of a new Saltrock go up in smoke. He watched Terez from the hill, a tall