by Tanith Lee
“What are—?”
“They’re alligators, Claidissa. And those things on their backs are riding-jadaja.”
“Ja-daja. I see.”
The alligators, some of them, flickered their tails. All their red scales skittered moonlight. They were very beautiful, but their eyes were cold and shone a moonish green.
The moon did have a green tinge too. A sort of vapor was wisping up the sky, wrapping over it. The moon in a cloud— lost in the cloud of the moon. Or just lost in the marshes of the moon.
“What fun,” I depressedly said.
But then the Riders were slipping off, all agile, onto the steps. They carried things to offer the moon god.
Things they’d shot with arrows mostly, in the marsh.
People have to eat. I suppose they have to make offerings, too. But it looked pretty dismal.
Nemian, to my amazement, couldn’t speak the language of the Alligator Riders. Someone from the shrine had to help. At last, something was agreed, and then an alligator was guided by its Rider up to the steps, and somehow we stepped on it, and got into the quite-big cage, and sat down on its padded floor.
I wondered if these people used money. Decided they might not. Their hair was unevenly cut short, and they wore reed-woven garments. (Nemian told me after; at the time I could only see they looked rough and ready.) Their jewelry consisted of polished pebbles, alligator claws, and teeth.
The cage jadaja thing was also made from reeds.
Our Rider didn’t seem to mind not calling in at the shrine. Perhaps they consider it part of their worship of the moon to assist travelers who meet them by moonlight.
As he guided his beast away, by gentle kicks and pats on its sides, the Rider began to sing, raising his eyes to the moon.
The moon was green in its veil. Mists rose from the marshes. The water glimmered like old glass.
His miserable-sounding song, with its no-doubt-miserable unknown words, made me want to howl like one of the Hulta’s dogs, only they seldom had.
==========
We were in the marshes a few days and nights. We stopped off at tiny villages of reed houses, where people sat fishing or mending nets, and the women wove cloth from reeds, at reed-built looms. A silent people. They didn’t say much to each other. Nemian communicated by signals. They gave us fish and edible leaves and unpleasant-tasting water that must have been all right.
The mouth of an alligator is one man-length long. Or a little longer. They have about three million teeth, or so it looked. But I saw Rider children swimming around with them, diving under the water with them.
Even toddlers.
Alligators smell fishy. Or these did.
We did, soon.
One sunset—I must describe it. Some salts in the marsh sometimes cause weird colors. But the sky went lavender, and the sun was ginger. And these hues mixed in the water. Lightning fluttered, dry, without rain or wind or thunder. And the lightning was rainbow-colored and in shapes—like branching trees, bridges, rolling wheels.
He said, “Its pretty. I’ve never seen this, although I’ve heard of it. Marsh lightning. Its nothing, of course, to City fireworks.”
We got here, to River Jaws, yesterday. The“ marsh ends here, and from the upper story of the guesthouse, if it is, you can see over the lines and ranks of reeds to an endless sheet of water. Wide River.
It does sink down and rise up—tidal, as he said.
There seem to be servants here. They speak the language I do, and some other language. Nemian can speak both of these.
The reason we re waiting: Nemian sent someone from here to arrange another boat.
No sooner did I write that than Nemian came by, just now, and enthusiastically told me we’ll leave tomorrow.
In three days, he enthused, we’ll be there—in his City with the fireworks and the Wolf Tower. His home.
Mine.
HIS CITY
Wide River’s wide. One seems to drift in the middle of space or the sky, because the sky reflects in the River, and they become one. And there’s only the boat—no land on either side.
A huge curved sail, filling slowly with steady, breathing wind. Like a lung.
They were slaves—I mean, the people who waited on us. I’d never been waited on—the opposite, of course. I wasn’t keen on it. And they were slaves, not servants. Two men and a woman, who sat in the boats back—its stern—cross-legged, heads down, ready for Nemian to call or snap his fingers.
Also, there were two sailors to drive the boat. (Or, it was a ship, I think.) Very respectful. No, they groveled.
Feeling so uncomfortable with this, I spent a lot of time sitting by the side, staring out.
Sunset the first night was glorious.
“Look at all the gold.” I said to Herman. Every so often I tried to speak to him.
“If you like that, I think I can really please you,” said Nemian.
Baffled, I let him take me to the cabin room where I was to sleep. The slave woman was there, and she bowed almost to her knees.
“The Princess Claidissa,” said Nemian, “will be shown the dress now.” So then the poor old slave undid a chest and brought out this dress.
Even in the House, I admit, I never saw a dress quite so magnificent. In the wild light reflecting off sky and River, the golden tissue of the dress seemed made of fire.
“That’s what you’ll wear,” announced Nemian, “when we sail into my City.” I was meant to be thrilled, and thank him, and tweet with delight.
Well, I did thank him.
“Its a very grand dress.”
“Oh, I know you prefer simple clothes,” said Nemian kindly. “Jizania told me about that. I even do believe you used to polish the odd table or whatever it was. You’re a funny little thing. But in public you’ll need to dress up.”
Obviously, not to let him down. That was fair. He was bringing me back, showing me off. I had to be acceptable to them. It was worrying, all this. If I was to be with him—I mean be with him as a companion, perhaps a wife (I’d never been sure)—I’d have to be responsible. Take pains.
Princess Claidissa.
Oh.
“Oh,” I said, quite humbly.
We had dinner on the deck, waited on hand and foot, arm and leg, as it were. Wine and fruit and dishes under silver covers.
Rather like the House.
What had I expected?
Maybe, at the start, I’d even wanted it—to be served, have things done for me. What other system had I ever been shown? It was either lord it or live as a slave.
Since then…
I chatted brightly. Oh, see, there were birds flying over. Oh, look, there was an island with a tree.
Dusk went to night. I went in to sleep. Couldn’t.
It was almost four days, in the end. The wind was often slow; the tides made it take longer, or something.
They said these things to him, apologizing, acting bothered in case he got angry. But Nemian, thank God, was just offhand and idle with them, only slightly impatient once or twice. Never rude or vicious or violent.
On the last day, the land began to appear regularly on either side. But the weather had changed. It got chilly. The skies and the water were two silk sheets of grey.
Then clouds came, and rain fell in tired little sprinkles.
Just after lunch, a tall, tall, smooth, slim, grey stone appeared, standing on the nearer bank—we could now see both of them. There wasn’t much else—a few trees, trailing down into the water, and a flattish plain, with thin mountain shapes on the left that must be months in the distance. (Altogether rather a bare sort of place, it seemed.)
“Ah!” cried Nemian, though, and jumped up.
He saluted the pillar, or whatever it was, standing very straight, just as it was. And all the slaves and boat-slaves bowed over double.
Nemian turned to me. His face was alight with energy.
“Only an hour or so more, Claidissa. Then we’ll be there.” I felt immediately sick. This seemed ridicul
ous. I should be interested, at least.
“I’m so glad,” I said.
“Go and get ready now, Claidissa.”
“Oh, but—”
“Its all right. I’ll change on deck in that tent thing. Just concentrate on yourself.” In fact I’d been going to say I wouldn’t need “an hour or so” to get ready. But it wouldn’t matter, really, so I did what he said, and the woman slave followed me into the cabin.
How wrong I was. It did take all of two hours.
First washing, and hair-washing, and drying, and then perfumes and things. All fine, only I felt peculiar, so it wasn’t.
Then the slave dressed me in lace undies and slid me into the golden dress.
After that stockings and shoes, bracelets, earrings. (Even a gold bag for this book.) My hair was still damp, but the slave began to arrange it. Parts were plaited, and bits were put up with pins, and some hung down in curls that were made with two heated iron sticks—tongs, she said—and there was a nasty smell of scorched hair—mine.
She made up my face. She put on powder, and dark around the eyes, and blush for the mouth and cheeks.
She even colored my fingernails with gold, and I had to sit there like an insane sort of tree, holding out my hands, fingers stretched apart to let the stuff dry.
When I got back on the deck, Nemian was standing there in his black and gold, looking regal. He gave me a nod—which seemed mean after the two-hour preparation. He could have said, I thought, How nice you look, or something. Even if only for the slaves benefit—she’d worked so hard.
The slaves served us yellow wine in tall glasses.
And the City appeared.
I’d been thinking, uneasily, how dreary it all looked, all this flattish greyishness, with higher greyish things—I didn’t know what—starting to poke up. There was a vague rain-mist. Everything looked ghostly.
And then this enormous heap swelled up and closed in all around.
Out of the mist reared a gigantic black statue. It was slick with rain, gleaming. What was it? It seemed to be a frowning man, his head raised high into the mist.
I was still puzzling over it, but other shapes, all completely huge, were now pushing in behind, and the ship-boat floated as if helpless in among them.
High stone banks rose from the river. Up from these, piled terraces of dark buildings, stone on stone.
And towers loomed in the sky, softened only by the mist. From one or two windows, a faint light seeped.
They glistened, though, in the wet, like dark snakes.
And everywhere, the gigantic statues, in pale marble or black basalt. Rearing beasts (lions, bears?). A grim stone woman leaned down toward the River, so I thought for a moment (terrified) this statue was tumbling and would fall right on the boat. In her upstretched stone hand, a real (vast) mirror, which reflected our upturned faces, small as the faces of mice.
Roofs, layered on the sky, vanished in mist and cloud. Everything was so big. So smooth and burnished.
So clean and cold and dim and dark.
“Yes,” he breathed. “I’ve missed this place. Home. My home. Yours. And look there, over there, can you see?”
I gazed where he pointed and saw a tower that somehow managed to be even bigger than all the rest, and even smoother and dimmer and etc. On the top, a furious black stone thing crouched, snarling, one taloned paw upraised, and a flag in it, dark and limp in the rain.
So I didn’t need him to say to me, in his emotional and exalting voice: “The Wolf Tower.” Perhaps not unreasonably, since Nemian was important, and after all he’d said about a welcome, I’d expected crowds.
There weren’t any. Or only one.
The ship was guided in to the bank, and there, in a long stone porch that stretched from the Wolf Tower, with its de-mon wolf, were some people richly dressed and a group of others, obviously more slaves.
These other slaves lay down on the pavement, in ‘the puddles.
“Our” slaves on the ship lay down on the deck, even the one tying us up to the bank, once he’d finished.
The royalty approached the steps and looked down at us. They wore fantastic clothes, thick with gold and silver, more like armor.
But they were smiling and waving soft hands.
“Nemian… Nemian,” they cried, “darling…”
They all looked alike to me, in a funny way. A lot of them had golden hair just like his.
Nemian got ashore and walked up the steps. Then he turned and gestured back toward me, showing me to them. And they clapped and gave little shrill cries.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I just stood there like a twerp.
One of the men said, “Your messenger was here before you, Nemian, in good time. The Old Lady will come out.” Nemian colored with pleasure. (His grandmother, must be.)
“I don’t deserve it. I nearly failed you.”
“No, no, Nemian. We heard how things went wrong. And still you took success.” They beamed at me. Should I smile too? Or stay ever so dignified? Before I could decide, a horn wailed from somewhere in the tower. They all fell deadly smileless and silent. Their heads all turned toward the door that opened on the porch. It was a high oblong door, of two steely halves.
Two slaves emerged first, holding out their arms, as if to shoo everyone aside. They looked haughty.
Then she came out.
Instantly I knew her. Instantly again I didn’t. I wished I hadn’t drunk the wine.
She was tall, thin, smoothed like the buildings. She had their colors or noncolors.
No mistaking her eyes—black in her dry, elderly white face. They were glaring straight at me, as if to strip me to the bones.
The two haughty slaves yapped in chorus:
“Princess Ironel Novendot.”
And suddenly I knew who she reminded me of, for all her utter unlikeness: Jizania Tiger of the House I’d left behind.
THE LAW: FINDING
Looking around, for the thousandth time, I wonder if there’s any way I can use that window, or that one, or even the door. Or is there anything I can do? I think about the million and one times at the House I got into hot water and usually got myself out of it again. Maybe with a slapped face or bleeding beaten hands, but nothing too final. However, this is difficult. No, it’s impossible. Argul told me I was trouble, or made trouble, and he was absolutely right. I just wish he was here to say, I told you so. Although I don’t, really, wish he was here. I wouldn’t wish many people here.
Sorry, I’ll start again. You wont know yet what I’m going on about.
When did I first start to panic? Well, that was long before this. Really almost as soon as I saw the Princess Ironel.
She came walking along the stone porch with her black licorice cane tapping on the ground. Her hands were white claws.
She wasn’t beautiful like Jizania, and Ironel had all her hair—partly black still, or iron-colored—pulled back off her masklike face into a towering topknot stuck with silver pins.
As she approached, Nemian and all the others kneeled down—not one knee either, both knees.
And the slaves were flat, all but her slaves, who presently kneeled and bowed their heads.
But I stood upright, there on the boat-ship. Why? In a way, I was frightened of tearing the dress if I kneeled. (It seemed very flimsy material.) Or getting it dirty. I mean, it couldn’t be mine. They’d provided it, this lot. (Just as maids had been dressed by the House.) I did bow my head. But that was shame more than anything else.
And why was I ashamed? Second sight, maybe, like Argul’s mother.
Sort of cricking my neck, I saw Ironel Novendot raise Nemian and embrace him. It was a stiff and a cold embrace. It was as if one of the towers did it. But he seemed awfully happy. He kissed her claws.
“You found her,” she said.
“Madam, I did.”
“What is her name?” I heard the old voice rasp. (Me?)
“Claidissa Star.” (Me.)
“Yes,�
�� said Ironel Novendot. “That is correct.”
The hairs rose on my scalp under all the curls and coilings. What did she mean? He’d found me? She knew me?
Then the appalling slaves on the boat were help-thrusting me up the stairs onto the bank and into the porch, and I was right in‘ front of her.
“You are welcome to the City,” said the old woman. She spoke—as he had—as if only this City existed, capital C. Like the capital H of the House. All lies, as now I knew. “We are very glad you’ve come,” she added. “I, certainly.”
She. She didn’t look it. Her eyes, jet black with grey rings around the black. Awful eyes. But she did look like Jizania, in a way. Was it just her age? No—and anyway, how old was she?
“We will go in now,” she told us.
An order.
Everyone got up, simpering.
She turned back to me, sudden as something springing, and caught my face in a bunch of claws.
“Do you speak?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Good.” She smiled. Ah. Her teeth were false. They were wonderful. Pearls set in silver. She must save that smile for very special moments. (She does.)
==========
First of all, the slaves let us into a hollow in the wall and closed a gilded gate. Then they worked a handle inside and the whole thing—hollow, gate, us—went rocking upward. Walls shut us in on all sides. I didn’t like it. But I recalled Nemian telling me about clockwork “lifters” that could carry people to the top stories of his City. Just as I thought Yd go mad and scream, we reached another open hollow. To my horror, we went right up past it.
There were some more of these. When I’d given up hope, we came to a hollow and stopped. More slaves outside opened the gate.
Outside was a colossal hall. It seemed to go on forever on every side, and the ceiling too was high as a sky, or looked like it. It was painted like a sky too, only the paint had faded. Un-less they did it that way in the first place, grey, with grape-dark clouds. (Probably they did.) On the deep grey marble expanse of floor were spindly tables with things to eat and drink, tobacco, and open boxes of strange stalks and tablets. These were like the things Nemian had given me instead of food in the dust desert. I couldn’t see why they would be necessary here.