The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,204

he really do it, Flick? Seel said you were there…’

‘Yes, he did it,’ Flick replied. ‘None of us can wipe that fact out, I’m afraid. I saw Cal come out of the Nayati. I never told Seel, but I knew Orien was dead long before anyhar else. I just couldn’t bring myself to speak of it. I felt soiled, responsible…’ He sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

‘Seel always suspected that, you know.’

‘I thought he did. We weren’t close enough to discuss it, Pell. I was just Seel’s convenient servant.’

‘It’s sad you think that way.’

‘He virtually kidnapped me in Galhea.’

‘He did that for me. He knows it was… unwise.’

‘And now he has a new family. As do you, I’ve heard.’

Pell pulled a sour face. ‘Now that’s another story, believe me. Thiede tricked me into it, although… It’s a long story.’

‘Tell me, I’m interested.’

Pell didn’t speak for a few moments. Then he said, ‘I could show you.’

‘I’m not coming to Immanion. Please don’t make an issue of it.’

Pellaz laughed. ‘No, I didn’t mean that. I can see you fit comfortably into this landscape. I meant this.’ He put down his sandwich and reached to take Flick’s face in his hands.

Flick tried to pull away. ‘No.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Pellaz said. ‘I won’t pry. I just want to show you what happened.’

To Pellaz, the sharing of breath was an efficient method of transferring information. Perhaps he was aware of what his living physical self could do to a har, and perhaps he took satisfaction in that, but while Flick wilted in drifts of perfumed essence, he merely told a story. He showed Flick a summer night in a town called Ferelithia, and a brief encounter with a har named Caeru. This was before Pellaz had ever seen Immanion. That night was magical, a turning point: it was the night Pell and Caeru conceived a pearl. And Pellaz just walked away from it into his big new life. Turned his back. When Caeru turned up in Immanion, some time later, Thiede had declared Pellaz should take him as a consort and proclaim their son his heir. Simple. Only Pellaz was too tangled up inside about Cal, dying for love in a slow painful way, and in Caeru he saw only a whipping post, because every time he saw Caeru’s face, he remembered the one he had loved and lost.

If Pellaz had wanted to dredge Flick’s mind for facts in return, he could easily have done so, but he didn’t. When he drew away, Flick fell backwards and hit his head sharply on the rock behind him. He felt nauseous from more than the just the impact.

Pellaz touched the back of Flick’s head and a blast of heat surged into Flick’s skull. Then it didn’t hurt any more. ‘Sorry,’ Pellaz said. ‘I should have warned you.’

‘That’s some story,’ Flick said inadequately.

‘That’s part of why I don’t judge Ulaume now,’ Pellaz said. ‘We all have our dark sides.’

‘A consort you despise and a broken heart. And you tell me it’s worth being Tigron?’ His lips were still numb.

‘Yes, it’s still worth it. I will achieve great things. I won’t waste what’s been given to me.’

‘The sacrificial king for all hara on earth.’

‘If you like. I used to be like you, but I’m not any more. I can’t be.’

Flick wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. ‘And you’re here just for the sake of old acquaintance?’

Pellaz raised his knees and rested his cheek upon them, gazing at Flick steadily. ‘I’m here because I wanted to talk to you, to somehar who isn’t part of what I am now. I’m here because of who and what you are, Flick. I know, in you, I’ll find refreshing honesty, something simple and straight forward, something clean.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘I don’t know. Is it?’

‘You are very powerful and you can have what you want,’ Flick said. ‘Maybe you’re looking for a confessional priest.’

Pellaz laughed. ‘There’s an idea! I’m enjoying this. I knew I would.’

‘This is bizarre. I feel we should know one another, and my memory tells me we do, but we don’t at all.’

‘I know. But we can remedy that.’

‘Will you see Ulaume?’

Pellaz considered. ‘I don’t think so. I sense neediness in him. He wants something from me. You don’t.’

‘That puts me in a position.’

‘That’s a pity.’

Flick was already wondering whether he’d be able to tell Ulaume about this, and then, of course, there was Mima. Part of him wanted to tell Pellaz about Mima, because he knew how close they’d