But it wasn't Pell. Ulaume realised it very quickly. The creature who struggled in his hold, feral and snarling, skinny as a stray dog and perhaps as rabid, was human and female. He glimpsed small b.r.e.a.s.t.s through the holes in her ragged shirt, felt the difference of her beneath his fingers. But her face: it was so similar to Pell's. 'Who are you?' Ulaume demanded.

Lileem had awoken and had begun to cry, pressing himself against Ulaume's side. The girl made no sound as she writhed in Ulaume's hold. Only her panting breath could be heard. She managed to free one of her hands and punched Ulaume full in the face. As he reeled from that, she went for his eyes with her clawed fingers and he had to lunge away. In an instant, the girl had fled the room.

Ulaume pushed Lileem from him and sprang after her. He heard her racing down the stairs, the rasp of her breath. How many times had she observed them as they slept? She must be the unseen presence he had sensed. He followed her out into the garden. She was running so fast she seemed to skim the ground. Her hair flew out behind her.

'Pellaz!' Ulaume called.

For a moment, the girl faltered, skidding to a halt. She glanced behind her, but only for a moment. With the agility of a cat, she was off again, and over the wall. By the time Ulaume reached it and clambered after her, she had vanished into the night. Ulaume gripped the top of the wall, straining to see into the dark, but there was no moon. He was filled with a sense of conviction. He had uncovered a secret of the house. 'I know you,' he murmured into the cool, quivering air. 'You are his sister.'

Ulaume walked slowly back to the brooding house, his heart full of a strange and excited wonder. She was as androgynous as her brother had been, beautiful. Wilder perhaps, but what had happened to her? How had she survived? What of the rest of her family, the brothers Pell had spoken of? Tomorrow, Ulaume knew, he must go down the hill. It was time.

In the attic bedroom, Ulaume found that Lileem had lit some candles and now sat hunched among the blankets, looking scared and most strangely slightly guilty.

'What is it?' Ulaume snapped.

The harling looked away from him.

Ulaume sat down on the bed and took Lileem's face in one hand. 'You have seen that person before, Leelee? You must tell me.'

Mouth pursed, brow furrowed, Lileem nodded gravely.

'It is not a har, Lee,' Ulaume said, his heart softened by the harling's expression. 'Why didn't you tell me? It's a human, not one of us. Dangerous.'

Lileem pulled away from Ulaume's grip and shook his head fiercely. 'No! Not bad! He is a friend.'

'It's not a he,' Ulaume said, 'but a she. A human female.'

Lileem's expression was now defiant and also scathing. 'He. My friend.'

Ulaume expressed a sigh. 'You must never keep secrets from me. It's too dangerous. Did you think I'd be angry?'

Lileem shrugged. 'He said not to. No, didn't say, but I knew. Inside. Promised to hide the words. Promised.'

'Tell me about it now. Whatever promise you made means nothing any more. The truth is out, so tell me.'

Lileem just stared at Ulaume, mouth still pinched shut firmly.

'Then I will tell you something,' Ulaume said. 'That girl, I think she is the sister of a har I once knew called Pellaz. I think he lived here with his family when he was still human.' Ulaume paused. 'This means nothing to you, does it. You don't even know what you are.'

Lileem's face seemed to be carved of stone. Defensiveness oozed from every pore of his small body.

'Do you want to know?' Ulaume asked.

Slowly, Lileem nodded, and the hardness dropped from his features. 'I'm scared,' he murmured.

'I'm not surprised,' Ulaume said dryly. 'It is a terrifying, but also wondrous story. If you don't understand anything I say, you must stop me and ask me to explain. It's important you understand it clearly. I don't want you to get things wrong in your head.' Ulaume reached out and stroked Lileem's hair. 'You are such a baby. I forget that sometimes, because you are also like an animal that grows up so quickly. I want to explain what we are to you now, and perhaps I need it more than you do. Perhaps you can tell me things in return that will help me understand you. I am not your hostling, Lee.'

'I know,' Lileem said. 'He weeps for me. I hear him sometimes. I feel him inside me.'

Ulaume had never told Lileem what a hostling was. Now, in the shuddering candle light, he shivered. 'You are what I am supposed to be, I think,' he said. 'What we are all supposed to be.'

It was well past dawn by the time Ulaume had finished his lesson. He told Lileem the history of Wraeththu, all that he knew, aware even as he talked that some of it must be lies. He explained about how the world was before, what humans had been like and what it had been like to be human. He described the wars, the disease, the famine, the pollution, the scream of the world. He told of the death and the phoenix that was Wraeththu rising, ash strewn, from the burned ruins. Lileem hardly interrupted his narrative, his eyes depthless pools that seemed to absorb the words. Perhaps he could read Ulaume's feelings and intuit the truth from them. By the end of it, Ulaume's throat was sore. He had talked for hours. Stretching, he picked up the jug of water he kept by the bed and drank it all. Lileem sat motionless, but even with his back to the harling, Ulaume could feel intense energy pouring out of him.

Ulaume put down the jug and curled up beside Lileem. The harling nestled against his side. 'Are you still scared?' Ulaume said.

Lileem's eyes were so dark, they seemed to have no whites to them. They glittered with unshed tears. 'There is only me,' he said huskily.

'I don't think so,' Ulaume said. 'There will be other harlings. There must be. You must not feel alone.'

Lileem shook his head, looking so much older than he was. 'No, just me. I'd hear their inside voices if they were out there. There is nohar like me.'

'Indeed not. Every har is unique. And we are far from other hara here. You might not hear or feel others because of that. We don't know. But you have me, and I will be with you for as long as you need.'

'I know,' Lileem said. 'But the girl, he she is like me. When I saw her, I felt it. I knew her.'

Ulaume did not respond immediately. He thought about the differences from normal hara he had noticed in the harling's body. Could it be possible it was not something that would change as Lileem developed? Perhaps this was the reason Lileem had been exposed in the desert. Could a har give birth to a female child? But Lileem was clearly not human, because he grew so quickly and was weirdly wise. A Wraeththu female? Impossible, surely.

'Tell me the quiet things aloud,' Lileem whispered. 'Please, Lormy. Tell me. What is the scared feeling when you look at me sometimes? Why does my hostling weep and why aren't I with him?'

Ulaume uttered a groan and kissed Lileem's head. 'I want you to be happy,' he said. 'Happy and free. I don't want you to worry or be afraid.'

'I am happy and and afraid,' Lileem said. 'I want to know.' afraid,' Lileem said. 'I want to know.'

'Your head is a thousand years old,' Ulaume said. 'All right. But I can stop at any time. Just put a finger to my lips.'

Lileem only reached out and touched Ulaume's mouth when the story was finished. He gently traced the shape of Ulaume's lips with his fingers. Ulaume could feel him trembling. 'You see,' he said. 'There is only me.'

'What have we discovered?' Ulaume murmured and drew the harling close to him held him tight. 'Oh Leelee, I don't know. I don't know.'

They slept for a couple of hours, then Ulaume went downstairs to prepare some breakfast. He couldn't help glancing around him continually, sure he would catch a glimpse of the strange girl, but she was nowhere around. In daylight, it was hard to believe he'd actually seen her.

Lileem came trailing into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He yawned and started poking around at the eggs Ulaume was preparing, rolling the empty sh.e.l.ls beneath his fingers. 'I came from something like that,' he said.

'In a way,' Ulaume said. 'Sit down.'

Lileem perched on a chair. 'When Pellaz died, he cried out to all the world,' he said.

Ulaume froze. 'The girl told you that?'

'No. I heard it. In my warm place where I was curled up.'

'He died the moment your pearl was born, I think.'

Lileem nodded. 'Yes, but I'm not him. You just thought that, didn't you?'

Ulaume smiled, surprised to find he was not as unnerved by that remark as he perhaps should be. 'I know you're not him, Leelee. But you're quite the little oracle, aren't you? I never realised how much. Also, I should tell you it's rude to pry into people's thoughts. Don't do it unless you really have to.'

'You heard his cry too,' Lileem said. 'It was a big wind that swept around. It was inside me when we went through the desert, and I didn't know what it was. Now I do.'

'Is the girl his sister?'

'You think she is.'

'What do you think?'

'Don't know. I'll ask her.'

Ulaume continued to beat eggs. He was aware he must proceed carefully. 'When, Lee?'

'Don't know.'

'When do you see her?'

'In the grey times, at morning and at night mostly. Then you call me in for breakfast or supper and she has to go.'

'Where does she live?'

'Don't know.'

'Perhaps you could ask her that as well.'

'She won't talk to you,' Lileem said. 'She thinks you're like the others, who did the bad things. She wants to kill you, but I've told her not to.'

'Thanks!' Ulaume said, in a harsher tone than he meant to use.

'I like the 'she' word, it's soft,' Lileem said wistfully. 'Can I be she?'

'Be what you like,' Ulaume said. 'It doesn't matter. You are what you are, whatever that is.'

'Two things, one thing!' Lileem said and giggled loudly. 'Two things, one thing. She he she he she he. I'm a she she she.'

'That's enough,' Ulaume said. 'It might change, Lee. We don't know yet. Just be be, and don't get attached to one idea. There's enough of that goes on among Wraeththukind, and it causes half the problems, I'm sure.'

After breakfast, Ulaume let Lileem go out alone into the gardens, hoping that the girl would show herself to the harling. He had no doubt she would not appear if he was around, so it seemed he had no choice but to leave the hill. He realised he had been putting this moment off for weeks. He dressed himself in shirt and trousers and walked barefoot down the rough road.

As he walked, clouds drew in from both the east and west, turning the sky a strange greenish purple. Though he could not see it, Ulaume knew that lightning st.i.tched itself within the boiling vapour. He could not hear it, but he felt thunder in his bones. Past the creaking windmills, the stable doors banging, the empty yards, the staring windows. Gradually, the sounds around him folded themselves away into the air, and he walked in a silence that vibrated like a plucked wire. Some terrible ghost awaited him, and it had been waiting long.

Nothing looked real in the strange light. The house before him now was like an image from a grainy photograph. Ulaume closed his eyes. He must open up, summon back the parts of himself he'd sought to bury beneath domesticity and mundane routine. In his mind, he saw a boy on the porch, sitting with his knees up, intent on sharpening a knife. His eyes held the same dull metallic glint as the metal in his hands. The air was full of a misty rain and the boy, who had been Pellaz, was part of it, a creature of mist who might vanish in an instant should Ulaume reach out and touch him. Then, as before, he sensed a presence bearing down from behind, the sounds of hooves slow-clopping on the damp earthy road. Ulaume paused. He could hear thunder, or was it the rhythmic boom of someone pounding metal, or the sound of a giant marching ponderously across the cordillera to the east, taking in forests with each stride? It was his own heart, amplified and intense.

Ulaume felt the ent.i.ty enter his body and it pa.s.sed right through him. He was drawn onto tiptoe as it did so, unable to breathe, his chest constricted with terrible pain. Then, released, he saw it, as he had not done before: Cal on a red pony riding away from him, having pa.s.sed through Ulaume's heart. He rode towards Pellaz, and Ulaume knew this must have been the first, fateful meeting between them.

Pellaz looked up, his eyes dull silver. In his hands, the knife shivered with blue fire. Cal's first words were, 'Behold, I have come to take your life,' but these words were unspoken. Ulaume heard him speak aloud and he said, 'I am Cal.' He might as well have said, 'I am the demon of the darkest corner of your soul.' Anyone could see he was already cursed.

Ulaume opened his eyes, and for a brief instant could still see the two of them on the porch. Then, the image wavered, and shattered like gla.s.s, pieces of Pell and Cal flying out in all directions. Thunder broke in the west and a charge of lightning struck down in the fields beyond the settlement. Ulaume would not let himself think or evaluate. He walked on, his feet now treading the steps to the porch. He reached out to unfasten the door but it was already open.

In the kitchen beyond, the Cevarro family sat eating a meal around a table. Ulaume heard laughter, the sc.r.a.pe of cutlery against plates. He saw Cal sitting among them, and from his fingers silver threads emanated, each hooked into the heart of someone at the table. Their eyes were milky and blind but for two. Ulaume recognised her then, a younger, innocent image of the wild girl who had run from him the previous evening. She could see clearly, and so could Pellaz. Pellaz stared only at Cal and the girl stared only at her brother. Cal was so busy he hadn't noticed she could see. If he'd known, he wouldn't have cared anyway. Or maybe the Uigenna in him would have killed her for it. Ulaume stood at the threshold and saw something he'd never had, but which he'd sometimes, in the most secret moments of childhood, longed for. The Cevarro family was wrapped in a golden caul of light. There was an intimacy between them that while it included others also excluded them. Pellaz was loved. He'd always been loved. Perhaps it was part of what had impelled Cal to steal him away. Without even being aware of it, he'd been jealous of what Pellaz had and had sought to destroy it.

Perhaps I would have done the same, Ulaume thought. I would have been full of derision and contempt for this. I would have stolen him too, broken their cosy intimacy. Something has happened to me. I have lost myself.

At that moment, Pellaz turned his head and stared directly into Ulaume's eyes. 'I did not choose what I was meant to be,' he said. Around him, the image of Cal and his family continued to converse. Pellaz had stepped outside of the vision.

'What were you?' Ulaume asked. 'Have you changed me? Have you brought me here?'

'Help them,' Pellaz said. 'You are strong, Ulaume, and you can do it. I will not remember this. I have much to learn. I will despise and condemn you, but now, in this moment, I know you are the one.'

'Are you really dead?'

'None of us are ever really dead.'

'Please answer me.'

Pellaz rose from his seat and came to take Ulaume's hand. He seemed small and childlike, and his skin was warm. 'I am dead,' he said, 'but I live. Come.'

He began to lead Ulaume away from the room, into the house, and when Ulaume glanced back, he saw another Pellaz still sitting at the table, gazing at the destiny that was Cal.

The house was in darkness, but breathed softly around them. Pell's fingers felt very real in Ulaume's own. 'I have seen your sister,' Ulaume whispered. He dared not raise his voice.

'She is strong, like you,' Pellaz said. 'She survived, as I survived.'

'You want me to help her?'

'She does not need your help in the way you think, but you might help each other.'

They had come to a closed door. Pellaz put his free hand flat upon it. 'In this room, we first shared breath,' he said. 'Cal showed me everything and nothing. I did not know him, and I will not know him for a very long time, but our souls are one. He is me and I him. Look.'

He pushed open the door and Ulaume saw Pellaz lying on the bed, next to another, who lay snoring, presumably one of his brothers. On the floor, wrapped in a blanket, lay Cal, his violet eyes open, staring wildly. He was planning, feverishly. And Pellaz, taut as a frightened hare, did so also. It was inevitable they should be drawn to one another. Pellaz no longer stood beside Ulaume at the threshold. Now, he was on the floor, beneath Cal's blanket and Cal's hand was upon his face.

Ulaume heard a noise from the bed, and began to back from the room. He did not want to see them take aruna together, and yet how could they have done, when Pellaz had still been human? Pell's brother on the bed was writhing beneath the blanket. Ulaume could see his breath steaming in the air, which had become suddenly icy. Ulaume was shaken back to reality. This was no vision.

The room looked abandoned, wrecked, and it was daylight now. Someone, or something, writhed upon the bed amid a debris of withered leaves and shattered gla.s.s. It squealed like a frightened pig. Ulaume cautiously approached. He drew back the blanket, saw brown skin, and a back with the spine sticking out of it so far it looked as if it grew on the outside. So thin, and it stank of s.h.i.t and blood. Human or har? Impossible to tell, but whatever it was, it was sick or dying. Ulaume reached out tentatively, put one finger upon it and at once the creature sprang up. Ulaume fell back, uttering a shocked cry. The face was terrible, huge eyes protruding from a skin-covered skull, the teeth too large and long. This apparition threw itself from the bed. Upright, it jerked like an animated puppet, careening from wall to wall, legs stiff, arms held out. Its hair was a filthy mane of tangles and twigs. It uttered hideous strangled squeals.

Ulaume had never beheld anything so vile. The mere sight of it seemed anathema to life and reality. It went beyond surface appearances, which in themselves were terrible. It was a great wrongness.

Before Ulaume could flee the room, the thing had lurched past him and its dreadful noises diminished as it moved away. Ulaume felt dazed. He could barely move, although his flesh crawled with revulsion. What had Pellaz shown him? Was this what Pellaz had, or would, become?

Back at the white house, Ulaume could not find Lileem. He searched all the rooms and the gardens, calling the harling's name. He must be with the girl and would no doubt reappear at sundown. Ulaume's heart beat fast all day. Wherever he was, he kept glancing out of windows, sure he would see some terrible vision shambling up the hill. The image he'd seen in the Cevarro house would not leave his mind. He felt nauseous, light headed.

As Ulaume predicted, Lileem reappeared when the evening meal was ready. 'You should come in earlier,' Ulaume said sharply. 'It's time you began to help me more. Look at you. You're half grown up already.'

Lileem didn't say anything, but went to wash his filthy hands in the sink. It looked as if he'd been rolling in mud all day.

Ulaume dished out the food and said carelessly. 'Did you see the girl today, Leelee?'

'No,' the harling said, tucking into his food with relish.

'What have you been doing, then?'

'I waited for her, but she didn't come,' Lileem said. 'I went to the water mill and saw some silver fish.'