Law of the Wolf Tower

by Tanith Lee

  “I—” I said.

  The moon turned blue and winked away like a closing eye. Distracted, I stared at it, and then a wash of icy cold sank over me, over the world.

  Something like wet silver spat into my face.

  Argul stood up. He pulled me up too.

  “What is it?”

  “Snow. Damned weather.”

  “What’s—”

  “Tell you later. Now we run.”

  The park was full of flying figures, shrieking and yelps. Wild laughter, too. So many couples thinking only of each other, and then this—

  White hurtled from the sky.

  Soon we were running through a blanket. It was like feathers—that awful sacrificial dress, plucked and flung in my face.

  On the square, when we reached it—rushing figures everywhere—people were carrying the orange trees indoors out of the cold.

  I wanted to carry the night indoors in the same way.

  But the night was flying off from us. This was a new dance. It was too fast.

  We ran together as far as the Traveler’s Rest—hand in hand. I think there were streets.

  In the Rest, windows blazed. Shouts and thunders. Everything was in turmoil.

  “Claidi, I’ll meet you here tomorrow—one hour after sunup, by that tree. Yes?”

  “Yes… yes—” Into the dance of the snow, Argul vanished.

  ==========

  In the morning, that tree—which he’d said we would meet by and which had been shaped like a candle flame of green—was white, a round white ball, from the snow. That’s how things can change. Overnight.

  Anyway, they changed before I saw the tree in the morning.

  After I got upstairs that night, to the women’s bedroom, I found it was empty.

  I wished Argul hadn’t had to go, but he would be seeing to things, making sure of the horses. Blurn would have gone too. I expected Blurn’s girlfriend felt as I did. Did that mean Argul and I… ?

  Really, I couldn’t work it out.

  So I stood at the window, watching the snow falling on Peshamba, settling in white heaps everywhere, changing things. And quietness came. I never heard such quiet.

  Snow had never fallen in the Garden. Perhaps it doesn’t happen in that area, or the Garden was kept too warm.

  To be honest I felt happy. And scared. I wondered if I’d imagined things had happened that hadn’t. The way he looked at me. He hadn’t said anything about my being with him. He’d simply suggested I stay with the Hulta.

  And I wanted to. Did I? Yes. But, you see, I’d rushed off with Nemian from the only life I knew. And I’d loved Nemian. And now I was ready to rush off again in another direction, and was that any more sensible than the first time? And was all my life going to be like this—rushing from one place, one person, to another? Exciting, maybe. Also exhausting, and fruitless.

  The snow fell, and my thoughts swam around and around, and then someone knocked on the door.

  When they didn’t come in, I went and opened it.

  I jumped back in—well, sort of horror, really. It was Nemian.

  He’d bought or found new clothes—black and gold. He looked striking and painfully handsome. He was very pale.

  “Claidi, can I come in? Or will you come out for a minute?”

  “There’s no one else here,” I said unwisely.

  I let him walk into the room.

  He glanced around. Bandit—no, Hulta—women’s stuff everywhere.

  Nemian looked back at me.

  “Did you have a nice evening?” I asked acidly.

  “Not really. I was looking for you.”

  “I wasn’t so far off.”

  “Perhaps not.” He paused. He said, “I wasn’t playing about today, Claidi. I was trying to find ballooneers. Peshamba used to have balloons for travel. Not anymore.” I nodded. I tried to look polite and vague, but a flaming fierceness, chilly and desperate, seemed all over Nemian, sizzling in the air.

  “Claidi, I know what you think of me.”

  “Do you?”

  “You think I’m a skunk.”

  “What’s a skunk?”

  “Claidi, don’t start that.” (I felt and must have looked annoyed. I didn’t know what a skunk was.‘)

  “Claidi, that girl—”

  “Mm? Which girl?”

  “You know which girl. I’m sorry. It just… happened.”

  “Well, lovely,” I said. I smiled my best congratulatory smile.

  Then he really astonished me.

  He dropped on one knee in front of me and seized both my hands.

  “Claidi, don’t play with me. I know I deserve it. But, all this has been so strange for me. I’ve been confused. I didn’t think it through, and now… Claidi, tell me I haven’t lost you.” He really is beautiful. The snowlight burned on his hair. I trembled, without quite knowing why.

  “Lost me?” I asked casually. “How do you mean?”

  “You will go on with me, to my city on Wide River? I have to know you will. Oh, Claidi… Claidi, I’ll lose everything if I lose you. Please forgive my hopeless, mindless stupidity. Stay with me. Come with me.”

  I swallowed. I couldn’t think what to say. Can you just say No in a case like this?

  He was sweating. His eyes… had tears in them.

  He wrung my hands like washing and only loosened his grip when I squeaked “Ow!”

  “There is a method of transport,” he said, “not a balloon. Precarious, rather. But I’ll look after you. I promise I will, Claidi.”

  “Er. But—” I faltered. Well, you know, I never claimed to be intelligent.

  “Claidi, in my city, my grandmother is very, very old. Like Jizania. And I have to get back to her, and to my duties there. I’m a prince. My life isn’t entirely my own. You’ll know.” (He’d forgotten again, I thought, about whether I truly am royal.)

  “And this life of mine, Claidi, frankly isn’t worth anything if I can’t take you with me. I need you. If only I can make you understand.”

  And then he stood up and dropped my hands with absolute snow-cold dignity.

  “It’s your choice, of course. And I don’t deserve anything from you. I’ve been an absolute fool. Shall I go now?”

  In the silence then, in the corridor outside, we heard the soft laughter and footfalls of the Hulta women coming back to the room.

  ==========

  At the agreed time, I stood in the snow by the white ball that had been a tree. Kids were out, throwing snow at each other. The horsetail men and women were charging their zebras up and down. Chimneys I’d never noticed puffed up blue, and there was a smell of hot bread, and bells rang sweetly.

  Argul came toward me over the white. It was miraculous, just watching him. I let myself pretend, just for a minute.

  And as he reached me and saw my face, and his altered, darkened, closed in, I said, “I’m sorry, Argul, but I cant stay.” He stood there then. Silent. “I thought I could, and I wanted to, but now—the situation seems very serious. I have to go on.”

  “With him,” said Argul. A storm went through the back of his eyes. He shook his head. The storm was gone.

  “As you know,” I said primly, “we’ve traveled together this far, Nemian and I.” Argul said, “He’s an okk.”

  I blinked.

  “You don’t like him.”

  “Oh, I love him.” Argul’s eyes on mine. I had to look down. He said, “No, excuse me. You’re the one who does that.”

  Then he turned and walked away, striding off across the snow, and as he did, something dropped from his hand.

  It wasn’t until one of the kids ran over and picked it up, and it sparkled, that I saw it was a ring with a brilliant stone. Had it been for me? Surely… not.

  The children ran away with it, after him. They were Peshamban and very honest, and I think it was a diamond.

  MARSHES OF THE MOON

  Some time has gone by before I came back to this book to write any more. Were at a place called Ri
ver Jaws and have to wait a day or something, for something or other. I forget why or what.

  The ink pencil ran out, too (I’ve written enough to use up a whole one). And I’d forgotten to ask Teil for more, so I had nothing to write with.

  He gave me a sort of pen-thing, his, I suppose, only it doesn’t write quite the same. Which somehow makes writing not so easy.

  Or am I only making excuses?

  Yes, Claidi—I hear you say—you are.

  When he said, I mean Nemian, “So you’re still writing in your book,” I was afraid he’d want to read it.

  But he doesn’t seem interested. I think he just thinks I like doing it. He called it my Diary. He said lots of

  “ladies” keep diaries in his city. So it’s fashionable, so it’s all right. Perhaps helps convince him I’m royal.

  He’s been attentive. But also he looks… nervous? If he wants me, then maybe that’s all it is. But he doesn’t touch me now.

  I feel sorry for Nemian. I try to be friendly and cheerful, to show him I’m all right and I like him, and I do try to like him.

  I don’t di slike him.

  But I can’t feel the way I did. I wish I could.

  Why else did I leave Argul and the Hulta? It’s hard to explain. I wanted to stay with the ban—the Family. But it was about what I’d felt before. That I’d kept changing my mind.

  You can see, I hope, how I felt. Disloyal. I don’t want to rush from person to person, never knowing who I’m going to want next. Like some spoiled horrible little child.

  The people in the House were always doing that. Now they were friends with X, then with Y, then with Z. And then they had an argument with Z and went back to X. Revolting.

  I’m. not like that. I hope I’m not. Nemian was the one I chose to be with. All right, he behaved badly, but then, I’m just Claidi. He got distracted from me. Not too difficult, I expect.

  I have to be loyal to him. I chose him first. If I can’t trust my own feelings, my own self…

  That was what I wanted, to be loyal. To prove to myself I’m not a shallow, silly, worthless little idiot.

  So I did what I did.

  The Hulta acted oddly to me. Not nasty, just fed up and a bit short. Only Teil said good-bye. Dagger came up and confronted me. She looked terribly fierce. “Why are you going with him?” she demanded.

  Tried to explain. The loyalty thing. Nemian. She snorted like a horse. She said, “You’re mad.” And some other words I shouldn’t have been surprised she knew.

  It doesn’t make sense, yet it does. Doesn’t it? Of course it does. Yes, I’ll be glad later, when we get to the city.

  He was so definite, how much he needs me.

  Argul doesn’t. (That ring, it wasn’t for me.) He has all the Hulta, loving him and loyal to him. He even knew his mother.

  Nemian and I—I’ll do the best I can. Please, God, even if you’re a CLOCK, help me to do the best I can.

  ==========

  The first part of the journey from Peshamba was fairly ordinary, except for the snow. Nemian gave me a big fur cloak. He said it didn’t come from an animal but that the Peshambans can make these garments, like pelts. It was warm.

  We rode in a chariot again, one of three, but drawn by donkeys. They had red blankets and little bells.

  Jingle jingle.

  When I looked back, a blue haze floated over the city on the pale grey luminous sky, from all the smoke.

  There was hot tea and mulled wine in flasks. But it got cold quickly and wasn’t so nice.

  ==========

  For several days we were in the plains. Once we saw some large white things, like clouds, blowing slowly along. Nemian told me they were elephants. They grow thick wooly coats like sheep, in the cold, and have noses like tails. That sounds crazy, and maybe he made it up to amuse me. We weren’t near enough to see for sure.

  At night there were tents put up. I had one to myself. There were burning coals in iron baskets for heat.

  I sat and reread this book, or bits of it.

  I don’t seem quite the same person now as when I started it. Does that makes sense? Who am I?

  ==========

  Finally, although it can’t have been that long, the weather started to alter, and so did the landscape. I could see enormous hills, mountains, appearing far to the left. It felt warmer almost at once. The sky began to break open in cracks of blue. Then it was all blue with cracks of white.

  There were grasses again, but very tall, higher in parts than the chariots. (The donkeys tended to eat their way through, chewing as they trotted.) There was a trackway, and then we readied a large village or small town.

  Normally I’d have been interested, but I wasn’t very. I’m useless—on this extraordinary adventure and wasting it all.

  Lets see. There were round-sided houses and fields where they kept having to hack the grass back from the grain. Weird trees with boughs hung right down to the ground, like tents, and huge black and pink birds rumbled about in them making quacking noises.

  They had a stream, which rushed and was white with foam.

  Everyone else stopped in the village-town, and only Nemian and I got a boat with a boat driver (apparently you don’t call them that, but what?), and we set off down the stream. Although we’d stayed a couple of nights in the village-town, Nemian didn’t go rushing off with everyone, although, again, he could speak their language. (They also take money for things, and he paid them.) He’d started to tell me where we were going. Through marshes, he said. The people there are odd but would provide the means to take us to the River.

  I had this awful feeling, which had begun on the plains and now was getting stronger and stronger. It was a sort of fear, and a sort of ache. Later on, Herman, who had also begun talking to me regularly, said he’d felt “homesick” for his city. And I realized then that I’m homesick, but not for any place.

  ==========

  I used to see him every day. Argul. You could always expect to see him. Riding along the wagons, checking stores, at the fire by night. (I didn’t often speak to him. Didn’t think he noticed me.) Or I’d seen him wrestling with his men, or playing cards—he could do very clever card tricks, magic tricks too. Once, on the flower plains, he produced a sparrow out of Teil’s ear. Couldn’t work out how he did it—a real sparrow, which flew away. Or when they took turns singing, he’d sing. Not that well, actually. You always could see him, doing something. Or just there. Just there.

  ==========

  (I’ve been trying to work out how long the journey has taken so far, from the House to this house overlooking the River. I’ve gotten muddled though. It seems to have gone on forever.) It was sunset when we reached the marshes. The stream, which had gotten wider and slower, with islands of the tall grass, eventually became choked with reeds. The boat driver (I never did learn his proper title) poled us carefully between. The low sun glinted red and copper on the water, all striped with reed shadows.

  Out of this somehow mournful picture, a building rose, not very cheery either. Black stone, with pillars and a strange up-pointing roof.

  Nemian told me it was a shrine. Ah. I knew about shrines. (?) This one was in honor of the marsh god.

  But when we landed at the water-steps and climbed up them cautiously—they were slippery and very old—there was an image of the god on a black slab. I thought at first it was another clock, but it wasn’t.

  They worship the moon, to which, they say there, the marshes belong.

  “Why?” I said. I’ve never stopped asking questions. If that stops, frankly I think I’m done for.

  “The Wide River lies over beyond the marshes. Its tidal, and so are they.”

  “Tidal. Like seas?”

  Apparently so. They drain and fill, affected by the pull of the moon. So, the moons a god in the marshes.

  Later, when we were in the hall of the shrine—a gloomy old place and no mistake—eating some gloomy bread and bitter, crumbly (gloomy) cheese, I spoke to Nemian about this th
ing of God and gods.

  “God is everything,” he said. “Gods, individual gods, I mean, are expressions of God. As we are.”

  “We’re part of God?” I goggled. I’d begun to have great respect for this (unknown) and superastonishing Being.

  “God gave us life,” said Nemian simply.

  He looked so special, and so quiet and sad, and what he said, the way he’d explained or tried to (God may be inexplicable, I somehow guess), I could see Argul in Nemian. Just for a second. So different, like the voice, the accent. But…

  I put my hand on his. I hadn’t been very nice to him—not affectionate or flattered, after he’d gone down on his knees. (Well, one knee anyway.)

  He glanced at me, and he smiled. He seemed suddenly very pleased, delighted, excited.

  And I was flattered after all.

  Perhaps it might be all right?

  “Claidi, may I ask you a favor?”

  Cautious, as on the stairs, I nodded.

  “I’d like to get back to calling you by your full name.”

  “Oh.”

  “When we reach my City, they’ll expect it. In public. You’ll be treated as you should be, as someone important, vital. And Claidi is a bit… not quite dignified enough, is it?”

  “Really.”

  “Don’t be angry, Claidi—Claidissa, may I?”

  “All right. But I’ll have to get used to it.”

  It isn’t me. So, more confusion. Who’s this Claidissa woman?

  We were at the shrine of the moon until moonrise, when one of the shadowy people there told us the Riders had come.

  Out we went, and there below the water-steps I saw this:

  Over the dark marshes, the dark sky and the moon. And in the water between the reeds, enormous lizards, colored the dark red of a Garden-bred rose. Some just lay there, wallowing, as the hippos had done in the Garden river. But others had openwork cages strapped on their backs, and men were sitting in these.

  What I’d expected I can’t say. I wouldn’t have gotten it right, whatever it was.