The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,151

you could only do by yourself. If she endangered herself through doing them, so be it. It was a gamble she was prepared to take.

The night when Lileem had revealed herself to the others, Mima had done a lot of thinking, not least: who am I? Ulaume was wrong to call her coy. It wasn’t that. She was quite sure she was Wraeththu, if not completely har in the way her incepted companions were, but where boys had the big dilemma of having to deal with female parts of themselves after inception, in some ways her own dilemma was more disorientating than physical changes. She could not call or think of herself as ‘he’. It didn’t feel right and it didn’t sound right and to do so would somehow murder Mima, the person she had grown up to be. So much power in so small a word. She wished it away, but it wouldn’t go. It gnawed at her, so much so, it was like having a disease that she couldn’t tell anyone about, all the while knowing it was killing her. They had learned that it was possible for females to be incepted and maybe it wouldn’t work every time, and maybe it required abnormal hara like Lileem to accomplish it, but there it was, an incontrovertible and vexing fact. On the outside, with her clothes on, Mima looked almost the same as she’d always done, because like her brothers, she’d always been fairly androgynous in appearance, but inside, she was changed. Her identity had been wrenched inside out.

She had promised Flick and Ulaume she wouldn’t go wandering around by herself in Galhea, and for a week or so she didn’t, because it took time to summon the courage. But one morning, after they’d gone to work early, she left Lileem asleep and crept off the boat. It was another beautiful, crisp Fall day, like all the days in gilded Galhea seemed to be. She had no doubt the other seasons were as perfect, because this was essentially Gelaming land and they would not tolerate anything less.

Everyhar she passed nodded good morning to her and she was not nervous about asking directions. Other hara saw nothing unusual in her: she was just a stranger needing help. The barracks were in the south of the town, approached by a busy main street lined by market stalls and surrounded by a high wall, where sentries in black uniforms ambled back and forth, dark silhouettes against the deep blue sky. The air was full of swirling leaves, but the breeze wasn’t cold. The scent of frying sausages from the food vendors’ stalls made her mouth water. From a blacksmith’s workshop came the ring of iron on iron. Mima absorbed each sensation, thinking she must remember this day. It was important.

The guards on duty at the gate looked her up and down when she asked for Chelone. She could tell what they were thinking and tossed back her hair to show them she wasn’t just any common har. Perhaps he was already out on duty, patrolling the river, or perhaps it was his day off and he wasn’t here at all. If he wasn’t, then it would be a sign and she’d go back to the boat. But even though she had to wait for a good fifteen minutes, which under those circumstances felt like an eternity, he eventually came strolling across the yard towards her. She could see him approach through the bars of the gate: a prime harish specimen with dark brown hair drawn back into a long plait. His face was well-sculpted, his mouth finely drawn. He would do.

Chelone stood on the other side of the gate, not smiling particularly, but not hostile either and she said, ‘Do you remember me? From the boat you searched a week or so ago?’

And he thought for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, of course.’

She realised he’d recognised her straight away, but didn’t want to appear too eager. He had been waiting for her to come.

‘Well, here I am. When do you get time off? Can we arrange to meet?’

She didn’t know if this was the way hara were supposed to speak to each other, if it was too forward or not forward enough.

Chelone did not appear to find her approach unusual. ‘I could change duties today, seeing as you’re here, because I’m busy for most of the week.’

He didn’t have much to do clearly. What, in Galhea, was there to guard against? He