Queen of the Wolves

by Tanith Lee

  He made no comment, the old man, as I drew him aside under a very big picture of a raven balancing an orange, labelled ‘Two-hundred-and-first Flight: Yak, Balancer of Oranges’.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to shock you, Hedee – but you were with Venn—’

  ‘Venn …?’

  ‘Prince Venarion Yllar Kaslem-Idoros.’

  His face paled, but he was steady as he said, ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘I was with him not long ago. He’s always remembered you – always worried about how you were carried off – from a high balcony, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘yes.’

  ‘Hedee – how were you carried off?’

  ‘Lords of the Raven Tower,’ he began. He stopped. Ngarbo and Vilk were abruptly approaching. Powerful I might turn out to be, but right now there were limits.

  ‘I apologize, lady, but—’ Ngarbo said.

  ‘Put a lid on it,’ said Vilk.

  Heepo looked me deep in the eyes and said only three more words.

  ‘They can fly.’

  No one moved. In the silence, I heard myself say, swift and light, ‘Oh, Heepo, what a relief. I was so bothered they’d be stuck up there, on the roof.’

  A juicy pause.

  ‘Eh?’ said charming Vilk.

  ‘Those poor ravens on the roof outside my window upstairs,’ I warbled. Inside I had turned to liquid ice. ‘I thought they were flightless and stuck. But Heepo says it’s all right, he knows them and they can fly.’

  Heepo bowed.

  ‘Mad old fool,’ grumbled Vilk. N and V looked at each other. N shrugged.

  We walked through other corridors I didn’t see, and out into the freezing appalling world of Chylomba and the Raven Tower, where—They can fly.

  Oh yes, it all made an awful sense. How else had it been possible to take three grown men from the Rise, grasp them and lift them and spirit them away too fast for anyone to see where they had gone. Even Hrald and Yazkool laughing about ravens – birds – hysterically. They wouldn’t have laughed much at the time.

  And that odd remark of Ngarbo’s about our journey today being longish, slow by road. What other way could we go? Over the hills? In the snow that wouldn’t be faster. So what other method was there? Only one. The air. I think I’d vaguely wondered if they had balloons.

  Those figures I’ve seen in the sky – too big, always too big for birds—

  Graff was waiting, groomed and saddled, on the street. There were to be ten outriders, seven on horses, and three on other graffs, those grey ones. Men with faces muffled against the cold, black furs and gold trim. All the horses and the graffs, including Graff, had been given plumes.

  It was cold. So cold.

  Somewhere a dog barked, coldly.

  I am going to the Raven Tower. To these people who have captured me and are maybe going to tell me they are my friends, and I belong to them. And they may be lying. And they can fly.

  THE TOWER

  Raven Road goes over the Ups.

  They call the country this because of the hills, up and down and up. The road cuts through sometimes, but often follows the curves of the hills, which are short and rounded, taking, each one, about ten minutes to ascend, five to go down.

  Pines and firs like dark arrowheads stuck in the snow.

  Beyond, above, gradually the mountains appear from the thin, snowy mist. They seem at first to be adrift in the sky. Islands, cake-iced with white. They are hugely high.

  I wonder if Hrald has made this journey, nudging Yaz, ‘Look at that – what a view!’

  Don’t think so, somehow. Not many ‘guests’ get brought all the way to the Raven Tower.

  Lucky Claidi.

  She is there.

  Venn would understand this, I think, the feeling I have now, iron cold on cold iron in my stomach. When we went to the house on the lake to see his mother, Ustareth. Only she was a doll.

  But Twilight isn’t a doll. Why am I so sure? Argul was a doll. (And the real Argul is in the Wolf Tower, being a prince with his grandma. How do I believe that?)

  There is so little I can believe, I have let go. I’m just adrift, as the mountains seem to be, though not attached, as they are, to the earth, or to anything.

  I’ve written this at a stop. They put up a silk tent, lit braziers, brought me a hot drink, and hot-house grapes. (Graff liked the grapes.)

  ‘Only two or three more hours,’ says Ngarbo, encouraging.

  ‘Oh, be gone in a blink,’ I say.

  I don’t dare say anything like, ‘We should have flown up, shouldn’t we.’

  I am afraid of the whole idea.

  Most of the outriders sit huddled, broodingly, in twos or threes, or apart. I’ve brought them out when they had better things to do? Shame.

  Anyhow, soon I’ll see my mother?

  If you are still reading, hold a kind thought in your mind for me. Please. I’m alone, and I feel as small as anyone could, under those mountains, under this tumble of shadowy sky.

  The Raven Tower rises suddenly out of the hills, among the lower spires of the mountains.

  The Tower is enormous.

  I remember the Wolf Tower as big, and dark, but the Raven Tower is high as sky, and black as coal.

  The top of it hasn’t got a statue, like the Wolf Tower. No, the top of the Raven Tower is itself shaped and carved like the head of a raven. Beaked, scored by feathers, glistening and black, with just a cap of snow. Seen from the Road, the head is turned. It seems to look sidelong at you, as a bird would. And where the eye would be there is an eye – a great high window, fire red.

  ‘Impressive, yes?’ asks Ngarbo, riding at my side.

  He is stuck-up over the Tower.

  ‘Very nice.’

  ‘Oh, girl, come on.’

  Ngarbo was probably all right. (?) But I’m not going to be friendly. Not now.

  I leant forward to pat Graff.

  Graff was my only friend at that point. Dear old Graff, wuffling and burbling away to himself, singing in the silver air, with snow-flakes melting on his lashes.

  ‘You’re just cold,’ said Ngarbo, making excuses for my loutishness in not praising the Tower. What did he expect?

  But then, I didn’t know what any of them really knew about me, or anything.

  We rode on up the Road, up the Ups.

  The snow was coming down more heavily now. The horses and graffs were trotting quickly.

  An arch appeared, a hole in the hills, under the Raven. As we jounced nearer, I saw torches burning there. Then, I saw they weren’t torches but more of the hard still science-magical light.

  How did they defend the Tower, out here in the snow-waste? There were no guards I could see.

  As we got close, the dark arch undid itself. Doors swung back, to reveal a tunnel. Very uninviting it looked. No one stood in the way. We rode through, and in.

  ‘Who’s that, on the end?’ Ngarbo asked, craning back, as we clattered into the tunnel and the snow-Road changed to metal. The hard lights lit the way.

  ‘Not an idea,’ said the other man, not Vilk, riding the other side of me. ‘He didn’t sit with anyone at lunch. Looks like he’s got in an argument now.’

  ‘Must be Eggblat,’ said Ngarbo, ‘He’s always in a fight.’

  ‘No, Eggblat’s off on his hols.’

  I lost interest as they bickered over the last rider of the escort. What did I care?

  Then there was a racket.

  The metal-faced tunnel roared and rang, and even Graff was shaking his furry head.

  Ngarbo and the other man went galloping back down the tunnel. From the lit dimness behind, men shouted and cursed, and then there was the sound of a shot.

  Suddenly a rider, another Raven, I thought, muffled up and black-cloaked, on a black horse, rushed past me and on up the tunnel.

  All the others then also came plunging up the tunnel after him. I pulled on Graff’s reins and we just got to the tunnel-side out of the way in time.

 
; Then we sat there.

  We had been almost trampled by our escort, and left behind.

  ‘This is lovely,’ I said to Graff, ‘isn’t it.’

  I thought of turning round and batting off down the tunnel again, out of the doors – if they hadn’t shut, or would open, off over the snowy Ups to somewhere or other. To freedom.

  But right then Vilk rode back down the tunnel to me.

  ‘Come on, it’s safe now.’

  ‘Is it really.’

  ‘We got the rotten nerbish.’ (What is that?) ‘Well, he surrendered to us.’

  ‘Did he really.’

  ‘Thought we’d seen the last of him. Must be potty. What’s he up to? Gets away – then comes back with us?’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  I already knew.

  ‘That Wolf Tower stinker you like. What’s-his-name.’

  ‘Jelly,’ I answered.

  It’s carved up through a tall hill or small mountain, the Tower.

  When you come out into what they called Hall One, everything is massive but rough-hewn, the inside of a vast towering cave. But it’s warm, and not only from the two great fireplaces, alight at either end. There are hot-water pipes working. It’s quite up to date.

  In fact, of course, it’s more than that.

  I’d expected lifts, but no. Under the heavy banners, (showing ravens in gold on black, black on red, purple on gold) a stair piles up. It looked like metal.

  ‘Hold on to the rail, please, lady,’ said one of my guards.

  So I did. Just as well.

  I gazed down queasily.

  ‘The stair is moving?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  This reminded me of the Rise, sections of building, stairways particularly, always diving about. But the moving stair of the RT isn’t like that. It does it to be helpful.

  And how had they made it move?

  ‘That knob down there.’

  Why should I flap about this stair? They can fly upstairs if they want – or some of them undoubtedly can.

  At the top, where the stair came to a standstill and we got off, was Hall Two.

  Here I was asked to wait.

  I sat in a chair, staring round at the soaring stone walls, not seeing much.

  Most of the escort left me. (Lots of flaring of cloaks. Cries of ‘By the Raven!’ which I think I’ve heard them do before, but here it sounds sort of religious.) Ngarbo and Vilk had already gone, to deal with Jelly again, I imagined.

  Jelly was certainly mad. But I hadn’t got room to think about him right now.

  Then, through a high door, came drifting a maid of some very well-dressed sort. What I recall is that her hair had been dyed in stripes of black and lilac.

  ‘Lady Raven will see you now, in the Raven Chamber.’

  I got up. How, I’m not sure, as I seemed to have no body.

  I followed the maid across Hall Two, out of an arch, and along some passages. Then there was an everyday stair, which we climbed. At the top was a door made out of complicated coloured glass in patterns. It glimmered from some soft clear lights on the other side.

  The maid opened the door, stood back.

  I was to go in.

  For a second, I couldn’t move. Then I just walked through, the most ordinary thing to do. But this was the answer to my life I was walking into. The reason for my being alive, perhaps, and for much of what has happened to me. And I thought wait – but it was already too late for that. Because there were only two human figures in the Raven Chamber. I didn’t need anyone to tell me who they were.

  MY MOTHER

  Two people – and about fifty ravens. The two women grew up like long-stemmed plants from a black grass that waddled and croaked, and now and then flapped up in the air and sailed over the room. Ravens perched in the raven-carved rafters, too. One swung back and forth, enjoying itself, on an ornamental lamp.

  She had one on her shoulder. I mean, Winter Raven. She was dressed in a long narrow white dress. The raven stood on her amber necklace, pecking the beads – silver today – in her hair.

  The other woman was older.

  How old was she? Old enough … to be my mother.

  She had dark skin. Her hair was like honey, and her eyes like paler honey. (There was a little dusting of grey in her hair.) She was slightly heavy in build, graceful.

  She wore a plain black velvet dress, and round her neck was a ring of gold from which hung a turquoise so finely cut and burnished, the dark of her skin showed through it.

  She’s beautiful.

  She’s Twilight Star.

  ‘I am Twilight Star,’ she said. ‘My daughter you’ve met.’ She had an accent. What was it? Oh – I thought – it’s the accent of the House, the Towers – which somehow I no longer have. I must have the Hulta accent now. I’d never noticed. ‘And you,’ she said, quietly, ‘I must call – Claidi.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I heard myself say, in my Hulta accent.

  ‘Will you sit down?’

  I sat.

  It would be simple to detest her for being so untense and in control. But I didn’t sound too bad. Was it costing her as much as it cost me, to keep calm?

  Winter wasn’t calm. She was snarling at me, sizzling. (My sister?)

  A couple more maids had appeared. I was being offered a tray with glasses of this and that – including a glass of hot tea – which is what I took, mostly because the glass hadn’t cracked from the heat. (As I took the glass, I saw Twilight’s gaze flick over my hands. Was she looking at the diamond ring?)

  ‘A long journey from the town, I’m afraid,’ said Twilight Star.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I hope you’re not too tired to talk.’

  ‘No.’

  Winter had taken a glass of something bright blue, which she drained in a gulp. As she turned and stalked away over the chamber, her shoulder-raven flared its wings.

  ‘You don’t mind birds, I hope?’ asked polite Twilight.

  ‘No.’ I drew in a breath. ‘What I mind—’

  ‘Is being kept waiting for an answer?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you, madam?’

  Couldn’t call her anything else, could I.

  She too had sat down by now, in a chair under a lamp. As the turquoise pendant swung, she touched it to make it still. She seemed one of those people whose every gesture counts.

  A carved raven on a beam flew up. It was real.

  Everything is like that. What seems fake is real, and what seems real – is a lie.

  So, watch it, Claidi. Watch out.

  ‘Why am I here?’ I asked. ‘I mean, why did you try so hard to get me here? The Argul-doll and everything.’

  ‘Yes, we did try hard, didn’t we? I’m sorry for that, the deception. But we wanted to see you. It was important.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You saw how they treated you in Chylomba,’ she said.

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘When they cheered and drank your health, and asked you to sign their clothes – and you – Claidi – being you, refused.’

  ‘Why would they want me to sign their clothes?’

  ‘There’s so much to tell you,’ she said.

  ‘We’d better make a start then.’

  Suddenly she smiled. She said to me, ‘You are exactly the way everyone describes you.’

  ‘Oh smashing. Everyone?’

  ‘Mother,’ said Winter, from across the room, ‘you can see what she’s like. Do you want me to tell her the facts?’

  ‘No, thank you, dear.’

  ‘Then perhaps you ought to do it. You want that too, don’t you, Claid? You want to know?’

  I didn’t even glance at her. I kept my eyes fixed on Twilight.

  Twilight said, to Winter, ‘Darling, try to be patient with me. Or I’ll have to ask you to wait outside.’

  ‘I won’t go!’

  ‘Then please …’ Twilight folded her hands. ‘I’d prefer – Claidi – to tell you everything in some sort of order. So, I
have to begin at the House in the desert waste.’

  ‘The House and Garden?’ I asked. (My beginning.)

  ‘Yes. But then, it begins before that even. When the Towers were at war, and the first Raven Tower was destroyed.’

  Her voice was smooth.

  I felt I must sit and listen carefully.

  Then, Winter Raven was laughing in harsh long shouts.

  Twilight glanced at her.

  Winter said, ‘Just look at her, mother. Like a baby waiting for a story. Hey, Claidis-Claidissa — how old are you, Claid? Three, or four? Thought you were my age, Claid.’

  ‘My name,’ I said, ‘is not Claid. Or Claidis. Or Claidissa. My name is Claidi.’

  Twilight’s voice, no longer so smooth, like a knife’s edge, cut through.

  ‘No, I’m afraid it isn’t.’

  I turned, staring at her.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ she said. ‘But why go on pretending. Your name isn’t any of those. Certainly not Claidis, nor the pet name, Claidissa. Those are the names of my daughter. She, the angry girl there, who calls herself Winter, is my only child. And Claidis – even Claidissa or Claidi – is not your name, never yours – but hers.’

  Now I know it all. I feel I have been stuffed with it like a cushion. Then sewn together around it. This knowledge. The Truth.

  I sit here, stupid as a cushion. I can think of nothing, except what I’ve just been told.

  All this way, for this.

  I can’t remember many of Twilight’s actual words. Can’t remember what Winter – no, what Claidi/s/ssa did. But I can remember the ‘story’ Twilight told me. Let me write it down then. In case I ever forget, and start to think I’m Claidi, ever again.

  Long ago, in that ugly City on Wide River, the five Towers fought, made it up, quarrelled and fought again. Pig Tower with Wolf Tower, Wolf Tower with Tiger Tower and Vulture Tower and Raven Tower. In the end the Wolf Tower won all the wars. Became Top Dog – Top Wolf.

  Every Tower had taken a beating, lost men and women, lost land and property, been damaged. But the Raven Tower was totally destroyed. And most of the people left alive from the Raven Tower – they were made into slaves.

  Worse than just having to be slaves in the City, plenty of them were sent to other places far away. There were lots of towns or settlements that had a link with the Towers. One of these was the House in the Garden. Years passed. I don’t know how many – hundreds?