The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure - By Storm Constantine Page 0,40

perhaps for no good reason. Ulaume had grown up Wraeththu. His inception had been different from most hara’s, because the Colurastes were different from most hara. His initiation had not been consummated with aruna: that had come much later. He had been given to a foster hostling, and had been allowed to finish his childhood. Manual procedures had been carried out upon his body to activate his Wraeththu organs, but it had been a clinical passionless operation. Aruna, when it happened, had been a time of celebration, a rite of passage. When Ulaume was old enough to appreciate this difference, he’d been grateful, although the Colurastes troupe he’d been part of had eventually come to regret taking him in. It hadn’t been his fault. He had his nature, they had theirs. He had been born wild, and reborn even wilder. Why should he think of this now?

He paused in the purple twilight, and it seemed to him as if the air smelled of rain. He shivered. He could hear a strange grating sound, like stone being drawn against metal. There was a sense of immanence around him. This place was holy.

Ulaume closed his eyes for a moment. Emotions poured through him, as if a thousand ghosts flew through his flesh. He was here for a reason.

Ulaume hardly slept that night, and Lileem shuddered against his body, whimpering softly. The coyote had returned, and stood sentinel high above them, occasionally offering her song to the gods of night.

At dawn, Ulaume roused Lileem and before they even took breakfast, led the harling by the hand into the ruined settlement. Lileem was fretful, more fractious than Ulaume had ever seen him. He tried to pull away from Ulaume’s hand. He wept.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Ulaume said. ‘There’s no one here.’

‘He’s still crying,’ Lileem murmured. ‘It’s in me.’

Ulaume swallowed the sour taste that rose in this throat. It was clear that Lileem could feel whatever had happened here. ‘We have to investigate,’ Ulaume said. ‘There’s something here. That’s what you feel. But it’s not alive. It can’t hurt us.’

Lileem’s expression showed he wasn’t sure about that, but he fell silent and allowed Ulaume to lead him.

By day, the settlement was less spooky but revealed as more desolate. It was full of sound now: the bang of windows and doors in the wind, the creaking of the windmill sails, the hiss of brushwood scratching along the road. Ulaume investigated some of the buildings, and was pleased to find items of clothing, cooking utensils and even some tins of dried fruit. He made caches of the things he wanted.

At one house, he opened the door and a scream flew out.

Beside him, Lileem squeaked and ducked down, as if to avoid heavy wings.

But there was nothing beyond. ‘Trapped ghost, that’s all,’ Ulaume said. ‘We set it free.’

Always, Ulaume was edging towards the hill on the outskirts of town. He watched it though the corner of his eye, drawn, yet also repelled. Something may be waiting there. Hope or revelation. Sometimes, Ulaume forgot he was on a quest or pilgrimage associated with the impressions he’d picked up of Pellaz’s death. Lileem had consumed his attention for the quick months that had passed since he’d left the Kakkahaar. But, in the back of his mind, deep in his heart, it was always there: an insistent murmur, a sense of anticipation and excitement. He was perplexed as to why this dismal, violated settlement should seem part of that.

Ulaume saw the graveyard just up ahead, and tightened his hold on Lileem’s hand, in case the harling was upset by whatever emanations might seep from the recently opened ground. Lileem, however, broke free of Ulaume’s hold. He seemed delighted by the place and scampered among the humps of earth, bending down to place a small starfish hand on each one. Ulaume decided he would never fathom the minds of harlings. This, surely, should be the creepiest place, but now Lileem seemed far more relaxed. Perhaps it was because the town was behind them. The graveyard, in its own way, was clean. Everyone who had come here had already been dead.

Ulaume allowed the harling to play and shaded his eyes to gaze up at the house on the hill. It was made of pale stone, and didn’t seem to fit comfortably into its landscape. ‘Leelee,’ Ulaume called. ‘Come here.’

The harling came to him directly.

‘Look,’ Ulaume said, pointing. ‘Look at that big house. What do you think about it?’

Lileem took hold of one of