once been. Would he feel the same way about her as he did about Terez, if he knew she’d undergone a kind of inception? If Pellaz were anyhar but the Tigron, perhaps it would be safe to tell, but Flick knew the repercussions could be dreadful. They could ruin his life in Roselane.
‘Can we do this sometimes?’ Pellaz asked. ‘Just talk?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ Flick snapped, hearing Ulaume in his voice.
Pellaz was silent for a while. ‘I’d prefer to talk with you only if you wanted it.’
‘I don’t know. There’s Lor to consider. If I keep our meeting secrets, he’d sense I was hiding something, and I don’t want to threaten our relationship. If I told him, he’d want to meet you too.’
‘But what do you want?’
Flick considered, and it didn’t take very long. He knew what he wanted, but managed to stop himself saying it. ‘It’d be difficult, Pell. Of course I want to meet with the Tigron of Immanion in private. What har wouldn’t? And of course I want to talk to an old friend. But…’ He realised, ultimately, that it was Mima and Lileem, and knowledge of the Kamagrian, which stood between them, not Ulaume. If he continued to see Pellaz, whether secretly or not, he’d end up knowing about the Roselane.
‘You have secrets, I know,’ Pellaz said. ‘See how good a friend I was, not looking at them? Are they that bad, Flick?’
‘No,’ Flick answered. ‘One day… I’m sure that one day…’ He couldn’t think what to say. There might never be a time when Wraeththu could know about the Kamagrian.
‘If you don’t want to talk about what happened with you and Cal, you don’t have to.’
‘I don’t think it would do you any good.
‘Now you sound like Thiede,’ Pellaz said. He stood up. ‘I will find you sometimes. We’ll make no arrangements. And if you need me…’
‘How?’ Flick asked.
‘I would be breaking every code of Gelaming law if I told you,’ he said, ‘because some of our technology, if you can call it that, is not for the everyhar. That is all I’ll say.’
He went to the lip of the rock ledge and uttered a piercing whistle. The sedim were not that far away. Perhaps they’d been eavesdropping. It dawned on Flick what Pellaz had meant. Astral. He was a means to contact Immanion any time, if Flick could only work out how. Vaysh had put restraints on the beast. Would Pellaz now remove them? He dared not ask, sensing his question would not be answered. It was up to him to work it out, if he ever had need to.
Then, there was another possibility.
Flick stood up and joined Pellaz at the edge of the rock. They watched the sedim come towards them. ‘Did you help us on the ocean when the Gelaming came for us?’ Flick asked. ‘Did you hear a call?’
Pellaz nodded. ‘A har in your company called upon me, but I had established a link with you, in any case. I was keeping an eye on things after what happened in Galhea. I sent out a troupe of hara to escort you to your destination, but the Roselane hid you from them. A pity. That would have avoided the unpleasant experience at sea.’
Flick laughed. ‘I never realised! We ran from the wrong hara.’
‘Well, you had no way of knowing, so I can hardly blame you. Thiede sent hara out to look for you because he sensed a secret. Seel’s and my fault, probably. Still, it was best you avoided capture. No doubt if you hadn’t, you’d be set up as somehar’s consort somewhere now, doing Thiede’s work.’
‘Like Seel?’
Pellaz gave Flick a considered glance, but did not respond to the remark. ‘You have some powerful friends. You don’t really need my help, certainly not now. Jaddayoth is spawning some interesting hara, as you are spawning interesting ideas about gods. We must talk of this some time.’
‘Yes,’ Flick said. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of being watched.’
‘It’s a Gelaming habit I’ve picked up.’
‘A pity you couldn’t have helped when I ran into Seel, then.’
Pellaz laughed. ‘Oh Flick, don’t you get it? I was at that party in Galhea. Nohar knew it, but I saw what happened. I had already vowed to find you one day, and then, there you were.’
‘Do you do that often?’ Flick asked. ‘Spy on your friends? Did Cobweb and Seel know you were there?’
‘No. I was there because I sensed I would learn something important, and I