The Wraiths Of Will And Pleasure Part 53

Few experience this Astral told her. Astral told her. Hara ride their dreams of flying horses and galloping limbs. Few perceive the truth of it. Hara ride their dreams of flying horses and galloping limbs. Few perceive the truth of it.

Pellaz called to her: Keep the image strong. Hold it steady. It is Astral's guidance instrument. Keep the image strong. Hold it steady. It is Astral's guidance instrument.

It was difficult to do that. Mima was having enough trouble trying to keep hold of her ident.i.ty, so that she did not disintegrate into a billion motes of consciousness and scatter. Think, Think, she told herself. she told herself. Remember Lileem the harling. Remember her laughter. Remember Lileem the harling. Remember her laughter. She couldn't keep one image in her head, but she relived many moments. In some ways, it was easier to offer Astral the feeling of her love for Lileem and into this, she poured her entire intention. This was the true beacon. In the midst of its pearly cloud, she thought, She couldn't keep one image in her head, but she relived many moments. In some ways, it was easier to offer Astral the feeling of her love for Lileem and into this, she poured her entire intention. This was the true beacon. In the midst of its pearly cloud, she thought, we have never been chesna, and we never will be, but we are sisters in skin and we share a history. I am coming for you, Lee. I will bring you back. we have never been chesna, and we never will be, but we are sisters in skin and we share a history. I am coming for you, Lee. I will bring you back.

Then she saw it: a beautiful azure blue light in the maddening chaos of the otherlanes. It hung up ahead like a star. It was the light of Lileem's spirit. It was a lantern in a window in a tall dark tower. It was the great gout of radiance over a stormy sea that guided s.h.i.+ps to dock. It was the candle of hope lit every evening high in a fortress, to show a rescuer where the princess was imprisoned. And Astral flew towards it.

Ever since she and Terez had tried, and failed, to get back home, Lileem had devoted herself to studying in the underground library. She had no means of writing anything down, so she had to memorise the symbols she saw. Terez spent his time exploring the great building above, seeking evidence of who might have built it and why. Occasionally, he went off into the landscape, searching for other buildings. He discovered that the purple sun revealed things in the chambers of the great pyramid. He'd occasionally seen what might have been furniture strange objects. It was difficult to tell. Once, he'd found a room with painted walls. Images of birds surrounded him. When he and Lileem met up, usually by accident if she'd decided to come up from below for a while, he'd tell her what he'd discovered. But they met infrequently. Sometimes, Lileem didn't see him for what felt like years. They no longer existed in time, and when Lileem looked down at herself, she thought she might be becoming insubstantial, like a ghost. She and Terez had died, and this world they were in, it might be h.e.l.l, because it was so lonely and so desolate, but Lileem could not see h.e.l.l in a place where there was so much knowledge. She knew that Terez was unhappy, and maybe she could be too, if she thought about it, but mostly she was driven purpose. Everything that had gone before, her old life, no longer mattered.

She could only examine the stone books on the lower shelves of the library, because she could find no means to access the upper shelves, which towered at least a hundred feet over her head. But even so, she had enough to occupy her for an eternity. When she finally came across a book that she could read, she felt she had been rewarded for her industry and application. It slid out from the stack and she experienced a chill the first physical sensation for an aeon. She saw the name of Aruhani, carved in stone.

Lileem pressed a hand against the word. The sight of it kindled memories of her old life. The book was covered in words, symbols and pictures. The name might be coincidence, because in this place she would come across anything that had ever been thought of eventually, but below the word she saw an image of the dehar, almost exactly how Flick had described him. There was a symbol too and she realised it was a summoning glyph.

The words and markings were so tiny, and so many were crammed onto the stone, it was difficult to interpret them. First, she looked for other familiar words and was not surprised to find Miyacala and Lunil, but was pleased to discover Agave, who she'd invented as a child, and in adult life had considered not to be a bona fide dehar. But there were so many others: thousands. Mima felt excitement. She thought of Flick. She wanted him to know about this.

But he never will, she thought. she thought. That is why this is h.e.l.l. I am given proof or evidence, then condemned never to be able to share it. That is why this is h.e.l.l. I am given proof or evidence, then condemned never to be able to share it.

Lileem leaned her forehead against the stone for a few moments. She felt the ghost of a headache, far behind her eyes. The books were not heavy, despite appearances. She found she was hauling this one right out of the stack. She was going to take it to the upper place. She was going to make Terez look at it.

If there is a way to get home, she thought, she thought, it lies somewhere within this library. I just have to keep looking for it. it lies somewhere within this library. I just have to keep looking for it.

Aruhani had come to her. He had prodded her and made her remember the life she had left behind. She could not ignore this message.

Outside, no suns were in the sky and the stars wheeled overhead. Lileem found Terez beside the ocean, staring up. Her footsteps crunched upon the gravelly sh.o.r.e, but Terez did not look round. In the strange light, his naked skin looked like marble. Once, I believed I loved him, Once, I believed I loved him, she thought. she thought. This place has stolen that from me. This place has stolen that from me.

'Terez,' she said. 'Look.'

He did not respond immediately, but then turned slowly towards her. She held out the stone, which was almost half her height.

'You shouldn't bring those out here,' Terez said. 'It's forbidden.'

'Who's here to forbid?' she asked. 'Just look at it, will you.'

She hunkered down and laid the stone out on the ground. Terez squatted beside her. 'What am I looking for?'

Lileem pointed out the words. 'Dehara,' she said. 'See? We didn't make it up.'

'Maybe you did,' Terez said, annoyingly unimpressed. 'Whatever any creature thinks is recorded here. This is just your book, or Flick's book.'

'No,' Lileem said. 'I know it's not.'

Terez sighed. 'What does it matter?' He stood up again and stared at the sky. 'Somewhere, out there, perhaps in another layer of reality, lies home...'

Lileem was silent for a moment, then said, 'I want to go back too, Terez. And I'm going to find a way how, I promise you. The information we seek lies in the library.'

He glanced at her. 'Maybe wanting to is the beginning,' he said. 'Maybe it's been you all along who has kept us here, because of that d.a.m.ned library. You haven't wanted to leave badly enough.'

Lileem considered his words. He might well be correct. 'Well, I do now,' she said. If only they could find desire in this arid place, but she knew that route was closed to them. 'I'll find a way. Come with me. Don't stay out here. It'd be quicker if we looked together.'

They walked back along the sh.o.r.e with the cyclopean edifice looming over them, casting its gaunt shadow on the sea. It was necessary to climb long sloping dunes of silver grey sand to reach the entrance to the library. Lileem and Terez waded up the dunes, their progress hampered by the s.h.i.+fting granules. The book felt heavy in Lileem's arms now.

Just as they reached the top, there was a great flash in the sky. Lileem almost dropped the stone. 'What was that?'

It looked as if a star had exploded for much of the sky ahead of them was filled with pulsing, sparkling clouds. The ground was shaking, and there was a sound like thunder.

'A portal!' Terez cried, trying to scramble faster up the dune.

Lileem stumbled after him. 'Another har and parage, do you think?'

'I don't know. Maybe Gelaming. They can go anywhere in creation, I'm sure. We must make them see us.'

'Terez,' Lileem said, 'it might not be...'

Whatever words she was about to speak were swept away from her. An immense radiance burst out of the boiling sky with the sound of an entire city crumbling to destruction at once. Both Lileem and Terez ducked down, and a hot wind seared over them, blowing back their hair. Sand scoured their naked bodies. Does this library have an owner? Does this library have an owner? Lileem thought. Lileem thought. And they have they just come back to it? And they have they just come back to it?

She was afraid.

Terez dragged her to her feet and together they reached the top of the dunes. A short distance away, they could see two bizarre creatures, crouched on the ground outside the pyramid. Were they creatures? They could equally have been machines. In some ways, they were like giant insects, because they had wings and their segmented bodies appeared to be made of some metallic substance that s.h.i.+fted with many colours like oil. The wings were similar to insect wings in that they moved so fast they were simply a blur, but Lileem could see that they were rotating rather than flapping. There was also something about the creatures that reminded her of sea animals. Their legs were like a crab's or spider's legs, with their bodies hanging between them. Their heads were long and triangular like a sea-horse's. They had three enormous faceted eyes. It was only when she heard her name called aloud that Lileem realised the strange creatures had pa.s.sengers or riders.

'Lileem!'

She knew that voice, even after so long. 'Terez,' she cried. 'It's Mima!'

'I know,' he said and there was fear in his voice, as if he thought this was a terrible, cruel illusion.

'Come on!' Lileem began to run towards the creatures.

The creatures appeared to be surrounded by a s.h.i.+mmering bubble of sparkling air. Lileem careered into it and then found she was lying on her back on the ground, the stone book on top of her. Something had repelled her with immense force.

She stood up quickly, and put out a hand towards the light. Something pressed against her hand. She couldn't push through it.

'Lileem,' Mima called. 'Come to me. Come now. There isn't much time.'

'I can't!' Lileem wailed.

'Try!'

Terez was at her side now and together they pushed against the resistant air. They could make no impression on it. 'This isn't real,' Terez was saying, over and over, but he kept trying to break through the barrier.

'Terez!'

Everything was happening so swiftly, Lileem hadn't inspected who rode the other creature. Her whole being was intent on reaching Mima, on going home and there was no time for thought or consideration. But now, she turned her attention to Mima's companion. She knew him at once, not just because he looked so like her visions of him, but because he was surrounded by golden light, by power.

'It's your brother,' Lileem said. 'Terez, it's Pellaz. He's come for us.'

Pellaz leapt down from his peculiar mount and came to the side of the bubble. He looked like a dehar and perhaps he was. 'Concentrate,' he said. 'This world is responsive only to one-way portals. There is no way back. Peridot and Astral are holding open the portal they made, but they are weakening. You have to break through this barrier. You must believe you can.'

Terez took Lileem's hand in his own. 'I believe it!' he said fiercely.

Pellaz closed his eyes briefly, then extended one s.h.i.+ning hand towards them. It came through the barrier as if through water and it dripped with opal fire. Terez grabbed hold of it. Pellaz would pull them through, together. 'Now!' Terez yelled to Lileem.

She hesitated, then let go of Terez's hand and ran back the short way to where the stone book lay in the sand. She heard them all calling to her, urgently, angrily, but she couldn't help herself. She couldn't leave this place with nothing. They'd suffered too much. The book felt so heavy now. She could barely pick it up, but if there was one last thing she could do in her life, it must be this. She staggered back to Terez, whose expression was demented.

'Lee! Drop that thing. Hurry. What the f.u.c.k are you doing?'

'Drop it!' Pellaz shouted at her. 'You can't bring it with you.'

Lileem ignored him. She held it close against her body with one arm, feeling the muscles rip beneath its weight. Its surface felt rough now and it ground against her naked skin. She must ignore the weight. She must believe she could do this. With her free hand, she grabbed hold of Terez's fingers and she saw that her own were bleeding.

Pellaz uttered a fearsome cry and hauled them through the barrier. Lileem felt her skin tear. It hurt so much. But then they were through. She gripped the stone book with both arms. Her legs were buckling beneath her. Terez and Pellaz carried her between them to Mima's mount. Mima was looking down, in terror, her hair swirling round her head as if she were underwater.

'Lileem, drop the stone!' she cried. 'They can't lift you. Lee, do what I say!'

'No,' Lileem said. 'I can't leave it behind. Please.'

Both Terez and Pellaz were trying to wrench her arms apart, but it was as if her limbs had turned to stone. Nohar could move her. One of them slapped her face, but she didn't let go.

'This is insane!' Terez cried. 'For f.u.c.k's sake, Lee. We have to go. We need to go.'

Lileem uttered an anguished wail. Terez and Pellaz were trying to lift her up to Mima, but she was too heavy.

'If you don't let it go, we'll have to leave you here,' Pellaz said harshly. 'Is that what you want?'

'Wait!' Mima cried. She leaned down. 'Pa.s.s it to me, Lee.'

'No!' Pellaz said. 'We can't risk taking anything back.'

Lileem saw Mima's face above her and it shone as her brother's face did. She was as powerful and beautiful as Pellaz, as strong as a dehar. Lileem collapsed to her knees and with all her strength held up the stone to Mima. 'Please. It's about the dehara. Please.'

Mima leaned down and, as if the stone weighed nothing at all, took it from Lileem and put it before her. The creature she rode uttered a high-pitched cry and its rotating wings rose higher.

'Quickly!' Pellaz said. 'The portal is fragmenting.' He and Terez managed to lift Lileem up behind Mima. She took hold of Mima's waist, clasped her numb arms around her.

Beside them, Terez and Pellaz mounted the other creature. Jagged stripes of red light fractured the protective bubble around them. Lileem felt a strong sucking wind that sought to bind them to this world. Her vision was blurred, but she was sure that millions of small scuttling creatures were pouring out of the pyramid, coming to claim and devour them. She heard Mima cry, 'Astral, we are ready!' The creature's wings were turning frantically now. Hazily, Lileem could see an otherlanes portal opening before them, but it was weak, and kept partially closing again.

'Aru,' Lileem prayed. 'You tore the skin of the vortex that would have taken us at sea. Do this again now. Hold wide the gates. Be with us.'

Whether the dehar heard and obeyed her command in this alien place, she did not know. She did not see his image or feel his presence, but suddenly the creature she rode shot up vertically into the air and, with a mighty crack, reality splintered. The portal opened wide like a yawning mouth and they plunged through it.

Chapter Thirty Six.

Flick sat beside Lileem's bed, gazing upon her. He and Ulaume had finished bathing her body carefully and now she lay naked on top of the quilt. They didn't want to put covers over her, because her skin was covered in scratches and grazes, some of them quite deep. She looked emaciated, and this was hardly surprising. Terez, who'd fared better than Lileem, had already told everyone how he and Lileem hadn't eaten or slept for years. It was a miracle they had survived in that alien place.

Pellaz said that he'd considered taking all four of them back to Immanion immediately, rather than stopping off in s.h.i.+lalama first, but Astral and Peridot had been weakened by their experience, and it was easier for them to follow the trail they'd recently made. They had intimated to Pellaz that they could not have remained in the otherworld realm for more than a few minutes, because the place worked its own peculiar hold on any creature that found its way there. If you didn't leave at once, you might never leave at all. Pellaz said that on the way back, he had felt Peridot's fear and the fact that such a creature, revealed in the other realm for perhaps what it truly was, could be so terrified was the most unsettling thing of all.

Lileem sighed and shuddered in her sleep. The skin on her face was raw and her arms and hands were badly cut. Mima had told Flick about Lileem's obsession with bringing a heavy stone slab back with her. 'The strangest thing was,' Mima said, 'when we broke through from the otherlanes into this world, I wasn't holding a slab at all. It had turned into an old, cracked stone bowl. Inside, it's covered in strange markings.'

'It must have been the journey,' Flick said. 'The stone changed in the same way the sedim sedim changed. Maybe.' changed. Maybe.'

As for how the sedim sedim had appeared in that realm, Pellaz was unsure if that was their true form or not. It might be that in different worlds, they took different forms. The moment they'd leapt out of the otherlanes, they'd transformed back into white horses. In any event, the journey had exhausted the creatures. They needed to rest before attempting another otherlane jump. had appeared in that realm, Pellaz was unsure if that was their true form or not. It might be that in different worlds, they took different forms. The moment they'd leapt out of the otherlanes, they'd transformed back into white horses. In any event, the journey had exhausted the creatures. They needed to rest before attempting another otherlane jump.

Flick left Lileem to sleep and went downstairs. The house was quiet, but soon Aleeme and the staff would be rising from their beds. Lileem and Terez could be kept secret for only a short time, and the sedim sedim would not be ready to leave before the household was awake. Lileem was also patently in no condition to travel. would not be ready to leave before the household was awake. Lileem was also patently in no condition to travel.

Mima and Pellaz had taken Terez to Mima's room and were no doubt still deep in conversation with him. Ulaume was making an early breakfast. His cooking left a lot to be desired, but Flick was so tired he didn't complain. The stone bowl Lileem had brought back with her stood on the kitchen table. It was a small, unremarkable looking thing, like an ancient artefact dug up from the site of a vanished city. Flick picked it up and examined it. The markings inside it were unfamiliar. He sensed no peculiar emanations. It was dead stone.

Ulaume placed a plate of burned toast in front of Flick. 'Carbon's good for you,' he said lightly. 'Keeps you regular.'

'Thanks.' Flick munched the toast with effort, but drank gratefully the coffee Ulaume placed beside his plate. 'What's going to happen?' Flick said. 'Will Opalexian be angry?'

'Who knows?' Ulaume replied. 'She and Pell are fairly close now. She might have mellowed.' He glanced at the clock on the wall. 'Mima and Pellaz have done something nohar has ever done before. Opalexian will know about it, I'm sure. She'll have felt felt it. Shall we place bets on when we'll be summoned to Kalalim?' it. Shall we place bets on when we'll be summoned to Kalalim?'

'Any time now,' Flick said. 'I'm already bracing myself for it.'

In fact, Opalexian made no move until mid-morning. By that time, Flick had instructed their housekeeper, Silorne, to keep away from the rooms where Terez and Lileem were sleeping. He explained they'd received unexpected guests in the night, who had undertaken an arduous journey and needed peace and quiet. This appeared to satisfy the housekeeper for now. Pellaz and Mima did not sleep, and neither did Ulaume or Flick. They were all waiting for the storm to break.

Before noon, a covered carriage drew up in the driveway outside the main entrance to the house. From this, stepped a parage who was concealed by a heavy hooded cloak. Silorne answered the door and conducted the visitor into the living room, where Flick and the others were gathered, drinking coffee and discussing what had happened. The parage paused at the threshold and waited for the housekeeper to depart. Then she threw back the hood of her cloak. It was Opalexian herself. She uttered no greeting, but said directly to Pellaz, 'I know why you did it. I just wish you hadn't.' It was not an opening thrust to which it was easy to respond.

Pellaz regarded her thoughtfully, then spoke in a measured tone. 'I intend to take Lileem and Terez to Almagabra. I can protect them. I have an estate outside the city where they can stay. No har or parage need ever know what has happened.'

'That is out of the question,' said Opalexian, coming into the room. She did not sit down. 'I wish you had informed me of your wild plan. Of course, you must tell me the details later. But for now we must make arrangements for our wilful charges. I have taken my time in coming here, because I wanted to consider the matter. It is my decision that Lileem must remain here in s.h.i.+lalama. Your brother is your responsibility, but he cannot stay here. They must be separated. Our task is to ensure they never discuss this matter with anyone, har or parage.'

'Perhaps we should ask them what they would like to do,' Pellaz said.

'Don't be absurd.' Opalexian sniffed imperiously. 'What condition are they in?'

'Terez is fine,' Pellaz said, 'but Lileem sustained minor injuries. They are both exhausted. You cannot speak to them yet.'

Opalexian nodded thoughtfully. 'Can you keep Terez from Thiede in Almagabra?'

'No, but I can do my best to keep my brother's experiences private. It is known that he lives with Flick and Ulaume. He understands he must tell no har about s.h.i.+lalama or the Kamagrian. I have told nohar in Immanion anything about Terez's disappearance. I will say it is my choice to have him with me in the city.'

'Once Thiede realises Terez is not a scavenging Uigenna wretch, he will want to use him, Pellaz.'

'Possibly. I will do all that I can to protect him.'

'Make sure you do. Thiede must not know what has occurred. If he discovers the truth, whether it's your fault or not, our agreement comes to an end.'

Pellaz stared at her coldly. 'You can be sure I want to avoid that.'

Flick could tell that both Mima and Ulaume were as curious as he was about what that agreement entailed, but none of them felt brave enough to ask.

'I'm glad we have an understanding,' Opalexian said. 'The time for initial preparation draws near.' She glanced at Mima. 'Your brother and I have much to discuss. Can you provide us with a private room?'