The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,238

asked you to swear eternal silence, what would have been your decision? Particularly if you lived with hara. Imagine having to look at yourself every day in the mirror, watch yourself growing old, while your friends stayed the same. Imagine never being able to take aruna. I haven’t told Kate about this yet, but I’m fairly confident what her response will be. When the time comes, I’d like you to care for her, Mima. Would you do that? Kate and I have had our ups and downs, not least because she is a close friend of Rue’s but I care for her deeply. I would be grateful beyond words if your blood could incept her. It’s the closest she could get to me. She is not like the pious Roselane, but a fun-loving and irreverent creature. You’d like her.’

Mima’s expression was stony. ‘Are you lining up a replacement for Lileem? If so, forget it.’

‘I wouldn’t be so insensitive. I’m asking you, as a favour.’

‘All right,’ Mima said grudgingly, ‘if Opalexian knows how it should be done properly, I can shed a few drops of blood. I can’t promise anything beyond that, however. I might not fancy her.’

Pellaz laughed. ‘You don’t know how much it cheers me to hear you talk like this.’ He took her in his arms again. ‘Kamagrian is a wondrous gift, Mima. It has given back to me the women I love.’

Later, they joined Opalexian for a meal, and spent a pleasant evening in her company. Opalexian was conviviality itself. She drank a lot of wine and appeared to be genuinely tipsy, which indicated a level of trust. Flick knew that Pellaz and the Kamagrian priestess believed they’d sorted everything out, calmed ruffled tempers and dashed all hopes of Lileem and Terez being found. Gifts were offered to keep things sweet. Opalexian asked Mima if she would care to become overseer of the gardens of Kalalim. This would involve a big rise in status. A large house came with the job, and staff to look after it. Mima, Flick and Ulaume could move into it within a week. Ulaume was good with his hands. It would please Opalexian if he would become her personal sculptor. She would like to commission statues of the dehara, which were, of course, so fascinating. Flick might like to open a temple to them in the city, in fact, to teach hara and parazha all about them. He could appoint a priesthood and devise rituals and ceremonies in the dehara’s honour.

These were weighty gifts indeed. Flick was cynical about it. Was there any point in being angry? Probably not. Pellaz’s arguments had been sound. There did seem to be little he could do about Lileem and Terez. Opalexian seemed to be taking Mima’s relationship to the Tigron seriously. Her offers were genuine enough. We might as well give in and enjoy it, Flick thought. To do otherwise would be stupid.

So life caught them up in a hectic spin, when there was little time to brood about the past or what had been lost. The new house was beautiful, and attached to the palace complex. It had its own walled garden, with a terrace and a series of waterfalls that brought back memories of Casa Ricardo. One of the many downstairs rooms was converted into a studio for Ulaume, where he had a sweeping view of the mountains. A staff of parazha came with the house, and Flick knew that the cook, a fearsome parage of short temper called Marmorea, would not look too happily upon him using her kitchen. The food she prepared was excellent, however. She often cooked with hot spices and peppers to remind Mima of home.

At the bottom of the long spacious garden was a small dark wood, and this afforded Pellaz the privacy he needed to visit their home. He would walk up the garden in the evenings, maybe once a month, leaving Peridot in the cover of the trees. The staff in the house believed him to be a high-ranking har from Garridan, and his visits always occasioned a flurry of excitement in the house, because the Garridan were mostly poisoners, and had a reputation for being dangerously romantic creatures. Pellaz would dress in black for these occasions, and his name to the staff was Artemisian.

Flick and the others found that their disapproving friends came flocking back after Opalexian waved her bounteous magical hand over their lives. On many occasions, hara and parazha dropped the hint that