The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,234

but we have to try.’ He held out his hand. ‘Lee?’

She sighed through her nose and took his fingers in hers. ‘I know you’re right, but… this place, it’s reached right into me. Part of me belongs here.’

‘You made a promise to me that you could bring us home, remember?’ Terez said. ‘Don’t break it.’

‘So, what do we do? Try it here?’

‘I think we should return to the place where we arrived in this realm. That would be the safest bet. Otherwise we might reappear in our world in the middle of a wall or something. At the very least, we’ll find out whether the stone elevator works both ways.’

When they retraced their steps to the circular chamber and it began to rise beneath them, Lileem could feel Terez’s spirits soar. He was desperate to get home and had perhaps always felt that way. They had found the entrance to the underground world and that was what they had come for. Terez had had enough. He wasn’t drawn to this realm like Lileem was.

As they began the long journey back along the deep valley, Lileem was already thinking in terms of how she might return here alone. It wasn’t fair to drag somehar with her who didn’t share her interest, or who was not prepared to surrender their mundane life to the search for knowledge. Lileem was now convinced her overwhelming desire for Terez had simply been an instinctive device to get her here. In the stone library resided the secrets of who and what she was. The genesis of Wraeththu and Kamagrian were hidden there, she was sure. It was the library at the end of the universe, the legendary Hall of Records that held the secrets of creations written by gods. No har, no parage, no human was ever meant to find it, because knowledge of this kind was not for mortal creatures. But beyond humanity, and its self-destruction, lay the accident of Wraeththu and Kamagrian, and the shared ability, bigger than the sum of its parts, which meant that together hara and parazha could plunder this secret realm. Did high-ranking hara and parazha already know this? Lileem would not be surprised to discover this was so. Perhaps they already came here and sought to keep it secret from those of lower caste. Humans had been confined in their flesh, denied access to worlds beyond their perception. Most had not even believed such realms existed.

This is how we are more developed than them, Lileem thought. This must be our purpose, our meaning.

But what use was this knowledge? Lileem and Terez found the place where they had been born into this world. They shared breath and touched one another, seeking the feeling that had drawn them together. But it was something they had left behind them. No spark of desire could be kindled here, no intimate sharing of body and mind. They were as empty as the bleak landscape around them. There would be no journey home.

Chapter Thirty Four

Flick knew he would never discover the whole truth about what the Tigron and Opalexian said to one another at their first meeting. He and Mima were sent from the room, as was Exalan, and Flick could tell Opalexian’s aide was far from pleased about that. In the room where Ulaume was waiting for them, Exalan told them to return home, which they did.

The house seemed cold and desolate, empty as it was of Lileem and Terez’s presence. Now, once the enormity of recent events began to settle in their minds, a sense of grief and loss crept into the dark rooms, made everything look cluttered and comfortless. Mima began to tidy up, perhaps seeking to bring back the spirit of place that seemed to have flown out of the windows.

Ulaume and Flick went to bed, exhausted and drained. Flick lay in Ulaume’s arms and drifted into a troubled sleep, racked by fragments of disturbing dreams. Their whole life had shattered. He and Ulaume were together again, in mind and body, but things would never be the same. Opalexian was angry with them all, and it might be they’d have to leave Shilalama. Lileem and Terez were gone and they had no idea how to find them. The Gelaming horses might provide a means to travel in other worlds, but there were infinite other worlds, many of them perhaps bigger than the one they knew. Lileem and Terez could be anywhere. They could indeed be dead.

That evening, a messenger from Kalalim