She inclined her head. 'Sorry I ruined your life.'

They both laughed, hesitantly, then fell silent. 'Come here,' Terez said, and held out his arms.

Mima pressed herself against him, held him tight. 'Don't ever believe them,' she murmured, kissing his hair. 'Family does does matter. Ours does.' matter. Ours does.'

First thing the following morning, Mima did not go to work, but instead took Terez to Exalan in the government offices at Kalalim, to make sure it was acceptable for her brother to become part of their household. After speaking with Terez briefly, Exalan interviewed Mima in private. She told him that Terez knew nothing of the Kamagrian and believed herself and Lileem to be a strange kind of har.

'For the time being, let him think that,' Exalan advised.

'But if he lives here, he's bound to notice differences in the parazha and hara around him. I'm not sure how to deal with that. What is the official line?'

Exalan smiled. 'This is a rare circ.u.mstance relatives from the past turning up so there are no protocols for dealing with it. I will speak to Opalexian about it. But for now, if you are happy to be responsible for your brother, I can see no reason why he should not become part of your household. We are not Gelaming, Mima. We don't want to make harsh rules. The happiness of our citizens is of prime importance. I trust you will act wisely, should any difficult situations arise, and I am here to advise you, should you need me.'

'Thanks.'

'Take Terez to work with you. I'm sure you can find something to occupy his time.'

'I will.'

Mima was unsure how Terez would feel about this, as he'd been a loner for so long. Would he be prepared to fit into the community and work for it? Now that she'd truly found him again, she was anxious about losing him. But he seemed to accept the idea without reserve and said, 'It'll be like old times, working the land.'

'One thing you might notice,' Mima was driven to say. 'Shilalama is a sanctuary. Many of the hara here have had difficulties: strange inceptions, with unusual results. Many are similar to Lileem and me. It's polite not to ask questions or pry. Will you remember that?'

'I will be the spirit of discretion.'

'As I said last night, this place can feel tame sometimes, but the hara here are a good tribe. There's nohar at the top wielding a big sword, and no pompous autocrats throwing their weight around. Therefore, co-operation and harmony are very important. We value these things. Even if the sweetness gets up your nose sometimes, just take a deep breath and smile back sweetly. Got that?'

Terez laughed. 'Absolutely. I can't wait.'

Lileem was concerned about Flick. He did not go out on patrol that day and after Ulaume had gone to work, went back to bed. Lileem went up to see him and he complained of feeling unwell. Hara were rarely sick. 'What's wrong?' Lileem said. 'You were fine before coming home last night. It's Terez, isn't it?'

'Partly,' Flick mumbled.

'Don't worry,' Lileem said, stroking his shoulder. 'He's not going to take Ulaume off you.'

Flick laughed in a strange, cruel kind of way. 'No.'

'You should go out again today. It's a bit overcast, but I'm sure it'll brighten up later. The mountain air will do you good. Take Astral for a wild gallop. Don't lie here moping.'

'I want to lie down in a small confined s.p.a.ce,' Flick said. 'Leave it at that, will you, Lee? Hadn't you better be going? You'll be late for work.'

Lileem stood up with a sigh. 'OK, but I expect you to make us a superb feast for tonight.'

Flick merely grunted and turned on his side. 'We should be careful of the Cevarros,' he said.

'What?'

'You heard.' He pulled the quilt over his head.

Every day at work, Lileem waited impatiently for the moment when she could run back home. All she could think about was seeing Terez, thoughts which she kept to herself. Terez appeared to have adapted well to his new life, and although he had a tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, which conjured the most intense silences known to the world, he was far from being the damaged har they had known in Megalithica. He flirted with Lileem, and maybe it was just jokey affectionate play, but sometimes, when Lileem looked at him, the expression in his eyes stilled the breath in her throat.

Lileem believed that Mima would be the difficult one over Terez, but it seemed that Flick had a.s.sumed the role, and that was well it was inconvenient. Flick seemed to be changing, becoming introverted and secretive. One night, Lileem even overheard him having a heated argument with Ulaume, which was so unusual it was shocking. Ulaume wanted to know was what was wrong with his chesnari, but when he tried to talk about it, Flick simply lost his temper. This was not the Flick they all knew and loved, and even Ulaume was becoming strained and tense.

As the season flowered into summer and the mountains began to sing an exultant song of abundance and lushness, Flick sometimes stayed out all night. Ulaume didn't argue with him any more, and this seemed to ease the situation at home, but Lileem could tell that Ulaume was bleeding inside about it. He would never be alone with Terez, clearly convinced this was the root of the problem. But Flick often wasn't there to notice this show of loyalty.

'It makes no sense to me,' Ulaume once confided to Lileem, when the two of them sat up drinking one weekend night. Their yard was a riot of perfumed flowers and the warm night air was full of their scent. 'Chesna is not about being possessive or frightened or threatened. It's a state of being. Hara take aruna with others all the time, whether in a chesna partnership or not. I know know Flick. We all do. It's not like him to be this way.' Flick. We all do. It's not like him to be this way.'

No, it wasn't. And even though Lileem had consumed one and a half bottles of her own wine, it occurred to her then that perhaps Terez was not the reason for Flick's behaviour.

'Maybe we're not chesna at all,' Ulaume said gloomily. 'Maybe we're kidding ourselves we are, because we've been thrown together.'

'Don't say that,' Lileem snapped. 'I think maybe it has something to do with what happened with the Uigenna. Flick's got time to think now. He's punishing himself for that.'

'He seemed fine when we first got here. More than fine. He'd put all that to rest.'

That was true, and Lileem didn't really believe her own words either. It was a puzzle. 'Perhaps you should...' She paused.

'What?'

'Well, when I was little, you found out about my friendship with Mima because... because you spied on me.'

Ulaume stared at her with wide eyes. 'Are you suggesting Flick is meeting somehar in secret?'

'No! I don't know what I'm suggesting, but aren't you curious to see what he gets up to on his own out there? Maybe the mountains are getting to him in a weird kind of way. I don't know. I just think there's more to all this than we imagine.'

Ulaume sighed, and took a long drink. 'You're not wrong there! I'll think about it.'

'Perhaps,' Lileem said, inspired by alcohol, 'perhaps Astral can still take him into the otherlanes. Maybe that's what he's been doing, and he's become sort of addicted to it.'

'I'd not thought of that.'

'Well, it's worth investigating.'

For a couple more weeks, nothing else was mentioned. Days flowed into balmy days and Lileem was sure the perfume of the mountain flowers had got into her blood. She felt drunk all the time, intoxicated and heady. Something momentous was approaching, and it was a marvellous feeling. In her heart, Lileem suspected what that might be. She was thinking of Terez, and that there always had to be a solution to everything, and that she would find the one she was looking for.

One night in bed, she asked Mima again about what had happened with Chelone. Mima now found this story extremely funny and she could tell it very well. She was often asked to recount it at friends' houses, because some Kamagrian had had similar experiences and liked to discuss them. When it was Mima's turn to talk, she'd have a roomful of parazha choking with laughter, which was often a welcome counterpoint to the stories of sadness and grief.

Now, Lileem laughed, as she always did, but her heart was racing. She had to wait for her moment, an appropriate pause in the story, but eventually, it came and she asked: 'Would you do it again?'

Mima regarded her quizzically. 'Hmm. Would I? Kaa tells us it's dangerous, life threatening.'

'But is it?'

'Why?'

'I just wonder about things, that's all. So many parazha have been drawn to hara, and it's always ended up badly, but... I just wonder.'

'Some of us would have to be brave enough to experiment and who knows? lives might well be lost in the process.'

'You didn't die.'

'I was lucky. Or so I've been told.'

There was a silence.

'Be careful, Lee,' Mima said softly, taking a lock of Lileem's hair in her hand. 'I don't want to lose you.'

It was difficult to keep things from Mima.

'The Roselane have few rules,' Mima continued, 'but we both know that is one of them. You'd be hard pressed to find a har round here who'd break it.'

'I know,' Lileem said. 'It's just talk.' She paused. 'Will we live here forever until we die?'

Mima lay on her back, her arms behind her head. 'I don't know,' she said. 'I really don't.'

Chapter Thirty One.

Midsummer, and its attendant festival, came and went, and now Shilalama prepared itself for the great Feast of the Mountain Walker, which lay between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. This was the time when a strange atmosphere pervaded the land, the heat shimmered above the lichened rocks, and weird beings crawled forth from the cracks and hollows to haunt the high meadows at mid-day. The Mountain Walker was a noon ghost, the spirit of the land. In his presence, anything became possible. He was the heat of summer, the fire of the spirit and the Roselane lord of aruna. On his festival night, parazha cast off their restraints and abandoned themselves to pleasures of the flesh.

'Who knows,' Mima commented, 'we might get to see a side of our pious sisters we actually like!'

Lileem knew Mima didn't really mean this, as they now had good friends among the Roselane, hara and parazha alike, but it might be interesting to discover what the Kamagrian were like when they let down their hair. At the very least, it was curious that the ent.i.ty they revered at this time was regarded primarily as masculine.

Tel-an-Kaa was home for the festival, which she claimed she never missed and, when she called round one evening, she tried to answer some of Lileem's queries about it. They were sitting out in the yard, with a group of friends, including Terez and Ulaume. Flick, as usual, was absent.

'The Mountain Walker is our male aspect,' Tel-an-Kaa said, 'and we only let him out fully at certain times. He is the scent of growing things, the scent of the earth. He is the creatures that live upon it. He is the creative principle, the seed sower. He is ouana.' She grinned. 'I must stop talking about this. I have a strong urge to carry you off to bed now.'

'Well, we could do that,' Lileem said coquettishly, wholly aware of Terez sitting somewhere nearby, although she would not look at him.

'Unfortunately,' Tel-an-Kaa said, 'kind though the offer is, I have work to do tonight and must go to Kalalim shortly. But...' She winked at Lileem. '...on the festival night, I intend to be off duty completely.'

Everyone laughed then, and Mima said, 'OK, can I make a date with someone now please? Otherwise, it seems I'm going to be moping round alone that night!'

'No chance of that!' a parage said, conjuring more laughter.

They had all spoken quite frankly in front of Terez, who might now be wondering why the Roselane only let their male sides out at certain times of year. There was an excited expectant atmosphere in the yard, and Lileem wished parazha could be like this more often. Perhaps an enterprising parage could begin to make changes in Shilalama.

Most of their guests stayed late, and dawn was approaching as Mima and Lileem said goodbye to the last of them and began carrying empty cups and bottles into the house. Lileem went back outside to fetch more and saw that Terez was sitting very close to Ulaume, his hand on Ulaume's shoulder. Ulaume was hunched up, his head hanging low. Terez whispered something in Ulaume's ear and Ulaume jumped to his feet, crying, 'No!' He virtually knocked Lileem over as he pushed past her into the house.

Lileem went to gather up the cups around Terez's feet. 'Whatever you just suggested was a bad idea,' she said.

Terez shrugged. 'It's ludicrous that he's here, all miserable, while Flick is out doing whatever he pleases. He should loosen up a bit. Give Flick something to be jealous for.'

'He's not jealous of you.'

'That's not what I've heard.'

'Then don't make it any worse.' She dared to look Terez in the eye then and saw at once he was very drunk. 'Go to bed.'

He stood up, unsteadily. 'Is that an order, tiahaar?'

'Yes. Go on. Don't cause any more trouble.'

Terez laughed and grabbed hold of her. 'What? Like this?'

She held his gaze. 'No, I don't call this trouble.'

She couldn't help herself. She just put down the cup she was holding and embraced him in return. Sharing breath with him was like inhaling the scent of burning black flowers. She wanted to suck the breath from his lungs. She wanted to suck out his life.

He broke away from her lips and inhaled deeply. 'Now I'm seeing stars,' he said. 'You're hungry.'

'So are you. You're not getting much, are you?'

Terez laughed, still holding her tight. 'The Roselane are not exactly to my taste, but... well, there's been the occasional fumble. What's your excuse?'

Lileem kissed his cheek. 'Can you feel it? We both want to be ouana. Now how about that? How do you sort that out?'

'Lee, you are shocking,' he said. 'Mima would kill me.'

'Only if you killed me,' Lileem said. Reluctantly, she let him go. 'Never mind that. Just go to bed and tomorrow this will seem like a dream.'

He pulled her hair playfully. 'One I've had before.'

After he'd gone into the house, Lileem danced on the spot for over a minute.

Lileem knew that on the festival night, whatever plans others might have for her, she was going to take aruna with Terez. Like Mima had been in the past, she was driven and certain. She did not fear death, because she felt more than capable of dealing with any consequences. Lileem was far more experienced than Mima had been when she'd taken aruna with Chelone. If things got out of hand, Lileem was sure she could deal with it. What she couldn't deal with was the unbearable longing to be close to Terez. If she didn't do something about it, she'd go mad.

For the next few days, she paid him scant attention, all the while conscious of his puzzlement and confusion. She could feel him begging her to look at him, so they could exchange a glance. He needed to see something looking out of her, but she wouldn't give in. It was a powerful feeling.

Flick, not really to anyone's surprise, did not show any great enthusiasm for the festival, although he did agree to accompany Ulaume to the party being held in the grounds of Kalalim. Lileem was headachy with antic.i.p.ation for the evening ahead, but she still had a moment of sadness when she thought about how Ulaume and Flick had somehow fallen apart. Since Terez had arrived, she'd been so wrapped up in her fantasies and dreams, she hadn't noticed that she'd lost a close friend. She couldn't remember the last time she and Flick had had a conversation. Soon, she must do something about it. They couldn't just let Flick slip away from them like this. It was obvious that he was deeply troubled, because as well as his long absences from the house, when he was present his mind seemed to be elsewhere. Flick has become sullen and short-tempered, traits he'd never had before.

The celebratory mood in the city that night was infectious, however, and even Flick seemed more like his old self as the five of them walked to Kalalim. Lileem hadn't yet had a drink, but felt intoxicated nevertheless and drew Flick away from the group. Mima was leading them all in a rowdy song and none of them paid any attention to Lileem and Flick hanging back from them a little.

Lileem took Flick's arm and murmured to him, 'Are you in love with somehar else?'

He gave her a strange guarded look. 'Is that what you think?'

'I'm looking for answers, however wild. I want my friend back, the one I used to talk with, the one who helped me through all kinds of problems. I love him very much, you see.'