Her skirt ripped even more as she fought through brambles to get to the water. She was half tempted to take it off completely. When she reached the stream, she collapsed onto its bank, and for some moments had to sit completely still so that her head would stop spinning. Her stomach roiled and then she was being sick into the tall gra.s.s. She heaved until she thought her stomach would bleed. Stupid to have drunk so much, really stupid.

Wiping her mouth, she took out the bowl from the pocket of her skirt. She realised she could see her surroundings quite well, because beams of strong moonlight shone down upon her. When she looked up, she could see an immense full moon through the branches of the trees. 'Hi, Lunil,' she said and blew a kiss towards the sky.

She leaned towards the stream and scooped up some of its bright glittering water with the bowl. The moonlight and the water made the symbols on the bowl's inner sides appear darker and more distinct. The language of G.o.ds, impenetrable and mysterious. Lileem threw back her head and drank. Water ran down her chin, onto her clothes. It ran over her fingers. And as she drank, she felt every symbol, every mark, flow into her. She drank of the G.o.ds, imbibed their being. When the bowl was drained, she looked into it. There were no marks on its sides. She uttered a long, ululating howl, like a wolf. Suddenly, life seemed fine again.

Lunil had flown out of the moon. He was a great shining figure in the sky, with stars in his hair. As she gazed upon him, so more spectral radiant figures gathered round him, flying from every corner of the universe to display themselves to her. There were thousands of them, mighty angels and dehara that filled the firmament. Each of them sang his own song to her, his own magic. Lileem felt a wrench within her and opened her mouth. She thought she was going to be sick again, but could not move. Her head was forced far back on her neck. The dehara sang and a stream of black motes spiralled out of Lileem's mouth and flew up into the sky. They changed into birds as they rose towards the moon. The symbols of the dehara had left her body, but she still knew them. They were with her always.

Above her, the sky shook with a sound like a thousand angel choirs crying out. The radiant figures exploded like immense fireworks. Sparks showered down. Then Lileem realised they really were fireworks. Aleeme had mounted the stairs that led to the bedroom. The Parsics had lit up the sky for him. Lileem could hear the cheers from the house.

Tyson must have wondered what had happened to her, if indeed he'd hung around waiting. Lileem scrambled to her feet. It was only then that she realised the little cracked bowl was no longer in her lap. Her ripped skirt was covered in a fine powder, like dust, like ash. She gathered some of it up in one hand, held it tight.

Lileem clawed her way back to the lake and found that Tyson was still sprawled there on his back, smoking his pipe. She didn't know how long she'd been away.

'What have you been doing?' Tyson asked her. 'Weird sounds.'

'I've been communing with G.o.ds,' Lileem said.

Tyson sn.i.g.g.e.red. 'Still want smoke?'

'No, I think you heard I've had more than enough tonight.'

Tyson was silent for a moment, puffing on his pipe. Lileem heard its stem tap against his teeth. Then he said, 'I don't have to be like him, do I?' It wasn't a question; it was a revelation.

'No,' Lileem said. 'You don't. I don't know your hostling, but I know Pell. He's OK, really. It wasn't his fault, what happened. They had their tragedy, and it was big. I can't see the sense of making it bigger.'

Tyson laughed softly. 'Yeah.'

'You should talk to Pell. It might help you both.'

Tyson sat up. 'Cobweb has got this stuff that makes you feel better. If you had some of that you could drink some more. Want me to fetch some?'

Lileem hiccupped, and her throat burned. 'That might be good.'

'OK, wait here.' He stood up, hesitated. 'What's the deal with you?'

'I'm not human,' Lileem said.

'Thought so,' Tyson said. 'Won't be long.'

Lileem sat and stared at the water that lapped at the banks. She could see the ghostly outlines of some kind of folly across the lake. This was a really good place. Her fist was still closed around a handful of dust. She imagined Terez coming to her, how she wouldn't hear him approach, but would know when he was there. She wouldn't turn to him or say anything. He would hunker down beside her and for some time they would be silent. She would be able to smell him. She remembered that scent so well. What would there be to say, really? The fact that he had come to her would be enough.

Lileem sighed deeply. Terez was a Gelaming n.o.ble now, groomed and elegant. He'd had other hara since her. She knew he didn't share her feelings, although she didn't blame him for it. She just couldn't have what she wanted in this world. But there was another life, another world. In that place, she would never experience love, but as she couldn't in her own reality either, that didn't really matter.

I can have knowledge there, she thought, she thought, and the wheeling skies, and the suns, and the mighty waters. I want to explore it more fully, immerse myself in it without responsibility to any other. I want to let it change my being. and the wheeling skies, and the suns, and the mighty waters. I want to explore it more fully, immerse myself in it without responsibility to any other. I want to let it change my being.

There were no soft footsteps on the path behind her, no familiar scent. Instead, she heard Tyson returning to her, humming beneath his breath. He sat down beside her and threw a small gla.s.s bottle into her lap.

'Here, drink that.'

'Open it for me,' Lileem said. She still held tightly the dust in her hand.

Tyson picked it up, unscrewed the top and held it to her lips. His skin, so close to her, smelled like burned spice. She drank the bitter fluid and even the burning trail it left in her throat made her feel slightly better.

'Cobweb is a powerful witch,' Tyson said. 'The things he brews up can kill or cure in seconds.'

Lileem laughed, swallowed with difficulty.

'What are you, then?' Tyson asked her.

'Har,' she said, 'but also different. I look like this because I work with the Zigane. We search for human refugees.'

'I know,' Tyson said. 'Why are you angry? Didn't you want your friend to be with Azriel?'

'No, it's not that,' Lileem said. 'Private stuff. Unfinished business. Rubbish, really.'

Tyson took hold of her free hand and immediately it felt as if her flesh started to sizzle. She could pull away now, if she wanted to.

'Forget it,' he said. 'Why should Azriel and Aleeme have all the fun?'

He put a hand upon her face and drew her to him. This was so dangerous. She didn't want to harm him. But already, she could hear the faint murmur of a distant sea. The sparks of spiralling stars fizzed in her hair. She put her mouth against his. His lips were beautiful and his essence was the dark roar of stormy skies. Her being was so attuned to the otherworld, merely the sharing of breath was enough to take her there.

She was out of her body looking down and saw them together in the clear moonlight. She saw them become enshrouded in a shifting pearly essence. A portal was opening around her, and she must be strong enough to step through it and cast Tyson from her. She couldn't risk taking him there. The moment was so close. Part of her was estranged from her flesh, waiting and calculating, while another swooned in the beauty of touching another har once more. If only she could have this. If only...

Now. She had to call to her body as if it was a reluctant younger sister. Come! Leave this place! Come! Leave this place! The portal appeared like a flight of shining stairs, where angels would walk between the worlds. The dust in her hand was the link to it, the contact between her and Tyson the vehicle. Joy filled her being. There was no better way to leave this world for the last time. The portal appeared like a flight of shining stairs, where angels would walk between the worlds. The dust in her hand was the link to it, the contact between her and Tyson the vehicle. Joy filled her being. There was no better way to leave this world for the last time.

Then she saw him, strolling down the path to the lake. His face was troubled, but because of her heightened sense of awareness, she could perceive the flame inside him, the flame that had never flickered or faltered: the flame that burned for her alone. Terez. She cried out, and her body pulled away from Tyson. Terez had come to her. The radiance around her became brighter and brighter and there was a sound like the limbs of trees breaking off and falling to the forest floor.

A mighty flash of light erupted as the portal opened wide. Lileem was drawn to it, as a spirit is drawn to death. Now, she was fighting it, howling like a maddened ghost. The pull was too strong. She opened her closed fist and the remains of the bowl spun about her, like stinging shards of diamond.

Terez and Tyson would be blinded by the light, but only for a moment. When their vision cleared, Terez would see only Tyson by the lake and drifting over him would be a strange dust, the ancient sand of a far and unimagined world.

Epilogue.

There was once a festival night that surpa.s.sed all others. It was the night when the world of Wraeththu changed, when hara, consciously or not, turned purposefully to approach their potential. Because of that night, Ulaume and Flick came together. Because of that night, Lileem had a childhood and youth spent with hara. It changed her, and made her the parage who could step out of reality to search for truth.

Looking back over the years, Flick often thought about how so many events had been initiated by the night when Pellaz had left his first physical body: lives had been touched and turned, dehara had come down from the heavens. A harling had been born: a very special one. Flick could not mourn for Lileem again, because Opalexian had told him Lileem had made the choice to go back to the otherworld. Her own special festival night had changed her in such a way that she could no longer live happily in this reality. Flick did not want her to be unhappy.

It occurred to him quite abruptly one afternoon as he worked in his garden, that when the shaman Itzama had spoken to him about gates between the worlds, so long ago, he had meant more than the otherlanes portals opened by sedim sedim. Flick wished he could remember in detail the brief conversation they'd had about it. He was bothered enough about his recollection to speak to Opalexian on the matter. He'd never confided to her before about his strange time with Itzama. Telling the story aloud to her made it sound completely improbable, but she appeared to take him at his word.

'With the benefit of hindsight,' she said, 'it seems likely this spirit form you connected with was was referring to rather more than an otherlane portal.' referring to rather more than an otherlane portal.'

'It's all so dim,' Flick said, 'but I seem to recall I just knew knew it wasn't my task to learn about the gate. I wish I'd paid more attention and hadn't been so scared.' it wasn't my task to learn about the gate. I wish I'd paid more attention and hadn't been so scared.'

Opalexian smiled, gestured with both hands. 'As I said, with the benefit of hindsight... Don't punish yourself for it, Flick. You just weren't ready for such knowledge. Perhaps none of are.'

'Perhaps you send a parage to that place,' Flick said, 'try to find it again.' He frowned. 'But then I couldn't find the entrance again afterwards.'

'It won't help Lileem, Flick,' Opalexian said. 'She walks her own path, and I am quite sure it is meant. Perhaps Itzama sensed something of what was to come, how you'd be her guardian. Maybe he felt the gate was relevant to you, in some way, without understanding the whole picture.'

'You knew she'd try to go back, didn't you,' Flick said. 'You always knew.'

Opalexian nodded. 'Yes. I let her go, because she understands now. If she ever returns, it will be in a time when the world needs what she has learned for it.'

'Our purpose, all along,' Flick said, 'was to care for her.'

'Not just that,' Opalexian told him. 'Your search for knowledge, too, was of great importance.'

Flick had tried hard to live a small life, but couldn't really have it. Fate had given him certain things to keep him sweet, but it had tasks for him too. Pellaz had slowly, but firmly, guided him into the world of Wraeththu. Although Flick and Ulaume still lived in Shilalama, and the Kamagrian were still perhaps the world's greatest secret, there were now temples to the dehara in the city of Immanion. Pressure for Flick to write down all that he had learned was overwhelming, but eventually he asked Exalan to do it. 'Don't give them a holy book,' he said, 'give them the encouragement to dream for themselves.'

It amused Flick to think that his name and his work were taught to harlings in schools. No doubt they believe him to be some profound, sagacious individual, but he knew that essentially he hadn't changed at all. Exalan, as his scribe and a.s.sistant, enjoyed the status more.

Some years after Lileem's second disappearance, it became common knowledge that Thiede was Wraeththu's progenitor. Whether Thiede allowed this information to leak out himself or some other enterprising har put all the facts together and came up with the right conclusion, not even Pellaz ever discovered. Thiede remained inscrutable on the matter, although he did not appear to be that distressed the truth was out.

Wraeththu was surging towards a dazzling future, changes occurring all the time. The western countries were mostly free of belligerent tribes and in other lands, new harish nations were forming all the time. Most remaining humans lived in autonomous reserves, while others were content to live with hara who were disposed to permit it. Those who still dwelled beyond Wraeththu influence were of no threat.

Pellaz and the Hegemony governed all co-operative tribes from Immanion, but nohar was under any illusion that they had supreme control. Thiede held the reins, as he always had. If, sometimes, decisions were made that were not wholly acceptable, most hara were content with the way things were. It appeared to the majority of hara that everything had slipped comfortably into place. They were free and they could explore their being without fear.

One day, Opalexian summoned Flick to Kalalim alone. It was a glorious afternoon and the city dozed peacefully in the sunlight. Opalexian sat in her office, and the windows were closed, despite the heat. The atmosphere was somewhat stifling. Flick realised at once she had something important to say to him, and his first thought was of Lileem. He had never given up hope that she would return home again.

He sat down before Opalexian's desk, waiting to hear.

'Flick, I have a proposition for you,' she said.

'Tell me.'

She rose from her seat and padded, bare foot, around the desk to stand beside him. 'You might remember that Pellaz and I once had an agreement.'

'Yes. He never told me what it was.'

'He asked me to heal Cal.'

'Cal.' Even now, the name made Flick go cold. 'Did you?'

'If Cal and Pellaz were ever to come together, it would change everything.'

'Which is why Thiede has never allowed it,' Flick said. 'But I'm curious: why and how could it change things? At the end of the day, they were just two hara in love.'

'Their union would make what Lileem and Terez did look like nothing,' Opalexian said. 'It would initiate many things, not least a change for Kamagrian.'

'Do you want that?'

Opalexian sighed deeply. 'Thiede would not want it.'

'Does he know about you?'

'Flick, I am his sister.'

This did not come as a shock to Flick. If anything, the information put matters perfectly into perspective.

'Not in the normal way,' she added hastily. 'We were created by similar means, and neither of us really know what that was. We do know that someone, or something, created us for a purpose, and like Thiede did with his Tigron, it took a few attempts to get it right. I was an earlier attempt. If any others survived, it is not known to us. They certainly didn't have the effect on the world that Thiede and I did. Thiede does not believe that Kamagrian should be encouraged or enlarged. He thinks it is a mistake and is happy for me to gather parazha here in Shilalama, to keep them out of the way. I do not think that parazha born to hara are freaks or throwbacks. That is a point that Thiede and I have never agreed on.'

'Do you have a lot of contact with him?' Flick asked.

'Not now. We did not discover one another until long after Thiede had established the first Wraeththu tribes. We met, fought, met again, and have maintained an uneasy alliance ever since. It is a long story, and one day I will tell it to you. All I want you to know for now is that it is my wish for Cal to become Tigron.'

'What?' Flick said. 'You can't mean that.'

'He and Pellaz should be one. Tigron is not one individual, but two. Thiede will never allow this, because he would be disempowered. His war with Cal has been long and b.l.o.o.d.y. It is a private war and an abomination. Terrible things have been done to Cal.'

'He probably deserved most of them. I know him. I know what he's capable of and also what he isn't. He is the most selfish har on earth, populating a universe of one. It would be insane to give him power. I shudder to think what he'd do. Most likely, he'd destroy the world and laugh as it burned.'

'And while hara think of him that way, it will never happen,' Opalexian said. 'Think about it.'

'I don't want to!' Flick shook his head in disbelief. 'This can't be so.'

'It is my belief that Thiede influenced Cal in such a way that he would do atrocious things. I'm surprised he didn't have Cal killed at the same time as Pellaz, but maybe that is because he couldn't. Perhaps Cal has higher powers protecting him in some way. Whatever the reason, it interfered with Thiede's plan. He certainly didn't intend to lose Orien. It must tear at his heart to this day that he was so immersed in recreating Pellaz, he was unable to save his dearest friend. He was, at that time, physically incapable of action. Still, his disability in that respect worked in my favour. I have been working some time towards a certain conclusion, even before Pellaz came to me and made his innocent request. For years before that, I had sought, painstakingly, to undo what Thiede had done to Cal.'

'You have known of him all along?'

Opalexian nodded. 'When Thiede made his Tigron, an operation I observed from afar with the greatest fascination, I saw what he let slip through his fingers. I saw Cal. Unfortunately, part of the redemption process has required Cal to descend deeper into madness and despair.'

'You mean you've tortured him as much as Thiede has?'

'Yes. There is no other way. You don't understand these things, Flick. It is very complex. Because of the magnitude of what must happen, and its subtle effects, I couldn't simply bring Cal here and heal him. He had to heal himself, and that was hard, because he lacked the will to do so. It has taken me many years to guide him along a better, stronger path. I have been groping in the dark, and sometimes the things I have laid my hands upon in that darkness were not what I desired.'

'What has this to do with me?'

'The final stage is in preparation. Cal will be brought to Shilalama. I will tell him all that he needs to know and the last healing will take place. Then he will be sent to Immanion. At that point all hara and parazha had better flee to their storm cellars, because the hurricane will be devastating. Its mighty winds will fly to every corner of the earth.'

Flick felt numb. He couldn't take in what he'd heard. It couldn't be true.

'Will you help me?' Opalexian said softly.

Flick stared at her for some moments. 'What are you asking me to do?'

'Take him to the dehara in trance. Give him knowledge of them and their strength. Tel-an-Kaa can work with you on this, because she will be responsible for the final phase of Cal's healing. She has been involved for some time in this process.'

'You want me to see Cal? Here?'