by Tanith Lee
She. She didn’t look it. Her eyes, jet black with grey rings round 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 upwards. Walls shut us in on all sides. I didn’t like it. But I recalled Nemian telling me about clockwork ‘lifters’ which could carry people to the top storeys of his City.
Just as I thought I’d 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 for ever 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. Unless 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.
Nemian though took a handful of them, and ate them. Then he took some wine from a slave. So did I, the wine, although I didn’t want it.
The old woman took only a glass of something that looked like muddy pond water, sucked it, and pulled a face like a kid who’d been given burnt spinach when it wanted an ice-cream.
But she clasped Nemian’s arm. As they walked along the long, long floor away from the crowd – who all watched admiringly and went on simpering – she called, ‘You, too, Claidissa.’
So I, too, went with them.
There were vast windows stretching floor to ceiling. They had glass in them, and eventually we stood at one, looking out over the City. (There was also something nasty bulging over the window top, twice my height again, over my head. Took me a while to realize it was one black paw of the evil wolf statue on the roof, curled down over the window. What a place!)
The City looked vile too. How could he be proud of it? Homesick for it?
Rain boiled among the stupid, too-high buildings. The depressing statues lurched and craned. Everything black or grey or like sour milk. Absolute rubbish.
I’d been vaguely wondering if there were any outer walls to guard it. (I’ve since learned there aren’t. Instead they have look-outs and other things, like Peshamba, but more ‘serious’.) But right then I thought just one look at this place would make anyone, friend or foe, turn round and trudge off in another direction. Any direction.
Nemian and his Gran had been murmuring things to each other. Not exactly loving, but sort of secretive and sneaky, somehow. They both had a sly, smug look. It didn’t suit either of them. He didn’t look so handsome. His face seemed to have changed. And glancing at me abruptly he laughed. It was a cruel laugh. One couldn’t miss it. It was a laugh of heartless triumph.
I didn’t want to make a judgement. I’d done a lot of that and been proved wrong. I just stood there meekly.
Ironel Novendot said to me, also glancing sidelong, ‘And how is Jizania these days?’
That was so much what had been on my mind, and I said at once, ‘Blooming.’
‘Blast the creature,’ said Ironel, snapping her pearls spitefully. ‘Wouldn’t she just!’
‘I’m afraid,’ I said, sadly, ‘she forgot to send you her regards.’ (Forgot a lot of things, I mentally added. Like the fact she and you seem to know each other.)
But Ironel only sucked her drink again.
‘One day,’ she said to me, ‘you too will have to live on muck like this. Has he told you my age?’
She waited. Old People often like you to be astounded by their ages. I said, ‘No, madam.’
‘One hundred and seventy,’ she informed me.
Well, I didn’t believe her. She wasn’t more than ninety-nine, I’d have said. But I widened my eyes and exclaimed, ‘A great age, lady.’
‘You too,’ she said, ‘will reach a great age, here in our City. And you too will end as I am, drinking slops.’ And she smiled again, pleased at the idea.
A curse?
No, it seemed to be simply a fact.
I went colder, far colder, than if she had cursed me.
Nemian said, ‘She doesn’t know yet, Grandmother.’
‘Doesn’t she? Nice surprise for her then. How did you get her here?’
Nemian shot me a little-boyish, rueful look. He seemed to be saying, I just know you’ll forgive me, Claidi. He actually said, ‘Well, madam, I lied to her a lot.’
‘And with your pretty face,’ said Ironel, happier by the second, ‘the poor little fish was hooked.’
My mouth didn’t fall open. And I didn’t throw up on their shoes. I remain proud of both these things. I was so afraid, I felt as if I was floating in the air inside a ball of ice. Struck dumb, I couldn’t question them. So I stayed mercifully silent.
Nemian said, ‘When Jizania’s people shot the balloon down – not in my plan – I thought I’d had it, I confess. But luck was on my side. And Jizania stuck to her vow – once I’d shown her the flower. It’s just possible she might have forgotten, if I hadn’t. Her mind isn’t as sharp as yours, Grandmother.’
They smirked at each other.
Then Ironel said, ‘I must show Claidissa the garden of Immortal flowers.’
I couldn’t work any of it out. Sometime one of these monsters was going to have to explain it all to me. Not only had I been made a fool of, I was a fool to start with.
Strangely, I had then a sudden image of Argul. He’d never have been caught out by such people. He’d have known what was going on. But in such a situation, he would have been terrific, I just knew. This is hard to describe, but all at once, I seemed to myself to become Argul. I wasn’t Claidi any more, but him, tall and strong, confident and clever. And brave.
I looked at them with Argul’s eyes, and I said, ‘This wine’s rather bad, isn’t it? Perhaps you’re just used to it. But really.’ And I upended the glass-full and poured it on their horrible floor.
They both gaped at me. What a sight.
At that moment, a bell rang.
Everyone looked, even they did. Through a gauzy curtain came two new slaves, bowing. And then this girl.
She was – I don’t know where to begin. I’ll try. If you took one new-born primrose and mixed its colour in the purest cream, that was her skin, the exact shade, and as smooth. She had black-blue eyes, slanting upward at the outer corners. She had blue – must have been black – hair that hung straight as sheet metal to the backs of her knees. She wore white, and the rain must have drenched her and then turned to opals.
‘Ah, now,’ said the old witch, Ironel. ‘Here’s Moon Silk.’
This girl, Moon Silk, came along the floor, gliding on perfect moon-pale feet.
And Nemian gave a sort of strangled cry. And down his cheeks ran more rain, only this was tears.
He left me, he left his fearful grannie, and he strode to the exquisite girl and raised her into his arms. He kissed her. It was – a kiss.
Despite everything, it startles me to have to report, I felt as if I’d been hit in the stomach.
And Ironel said, not needing to, as he hadn’t needed to name this awful Tower, ‘How touching. Lovers re-meeting. Nemian and his young bride. They were only married, Claidissa, a month
, before he had to leave us on his quest for you.’
She told me. (Ironel.) She must have loved it. I tried to be Argul, still, but he’d never have got in this mess. In the end I just had to be Claidi, and listen, and cope as best I could.
It’s soon told, though she went on and on, embroidering bits lovingly. Lingering. Watching me to see if I’d cry or jump about.
Before, she took me with her, alone, along the top storey of the Wolf Tower. From various windows she pointed out ugly important buildings. The other three Towers, for example, in the three other quarters of the City. They are the Pig Tower, the Vulture Tower, and the Tiger Tower. You’ll probably see at once, the Tiger Tower used to be Jizania Tiger’s. Where Jizania was born.
Ironel also showed me a courtyard in which, in four grey stone vases, grew the brilliant red flowers with juicy leaves. One of which Nemian handed Jizania in the House Debating Hall.
Meanwhile, downstairs, in the Wolf Tower, Nemian would be blissfully alone with his wife. Moon Silk. Ironel kept going back to that.
But she slipped up there. In the end, I got used to it.
Let’s face it, too, he was a rotten husband. Married one month, and the moment he had the chance, off with a Hulta girl. He’d led me on because he had to. But there was no excuse for that.
We were by then seated in Ironel’s apartment in the Tower, in another far-too-large room, that echoed. Outside was a view of where the River grew hugely wide again, and the opposite bank wasn’t to be seen.
The Wolf Tower isn’t very warm. They don’t have the heating system the House had. Just fireplaces and baskets of coals (braziers), both of which smoke.
Anyway, I must now write down what Ironel Novendot told me. Because this book is the story of my life, and she – or the Law of the Tower – made it all happen.
Yes. The Law.
But I think I’ll have to explain about that separately. It’s a story in itself, the Wolf Tower Law. I’ve only become a tiny desperate bit of it.
The Law (and as I say, I’ll go back to the Law) decreed that Nemian had to find a girl to take over a particular duty in the City. Probably the most necessary duty. And that was because Ironel, who until now had seen to this duty, was at last too old for it – or she said she was.
And here Law is LAW. Is Absolute. No one goes against it.
So Nemian, just married and all, set off in the hot-air balloon, of which the City has a fleet, although they seldom use them.
Some things then went wrong with the balloon, and there was a chance he wouldn’t make it. Then he did make it, only to be shot down by the guns of the very place – the House – he’d been travelling to. He told them he was on a quest, and he was. I was the quest. He was on a quest to find me. This makes me sound of great importance, and I was. I am.
Because, you see, Jizania Tiger, in her youth, over a hundred years ago, had also left this City, and gone to live in the House. (No one says why. Honestly, I should just think she’d have preferred to.) I don’t know how the House is related to this City. But obviously it was, then.
When she left, she promised, made a vow by the Law, to present to the Wolf Tower, when required, a girl of royal blood, from the House. A girl suitable to take on Ironel’s duty, when Ironel gave it up.
If Jizania eventually forgot this vow, I don’t know. Very likely. It was a damn silly nasty thing to have to remember.
But Nemian gave her the red flower, the Immortal, which was the token by which she’d know the time had come.
I suppose, as in certain stories I’ve read, maybe it was meant to be her own daughter, or granddaughter, she’d have to supply.
Did Jizania perhaps even tell Nemian that I was – that I was her granddaughter, her daughter’s child?
You see, Jizania lied to Nemian, and she lied to me. And she knew and doubtless told him, he’d better lie to me too. Even when he started to have doubts I was the princess-girl Jizania had assured him I was. By then I was all he could get. I did come from the House. I have the House accent – which Ironel would recognize. Perhaps I’d do. And I was daft enough to believe him, to stay with him.
He did nearly lose me, that once, in Peshamba. But when he knew he might, he rushed to me and pleaded to try to get me back. He really was desperate and afraid that night. When he said his life wouldn’t be worth anything without me, that wasn’t a lie at all.
I said, the Law is the LAW. If he’d come back empty-handed, he’d have lost his title, his money, his wife. They’d have flung him in some cellar and left him there.
That’s what the Law is like. You don’t ever go against it.
Maybe he could just have run off in the wild, never come back. But he wanted to, was ‘homesick’. Or – well, he probably wanted Moon Silk.
That I’d be reluctant to come with him, was obvious. That is, if I’d known what they wanted me for. He wasn’t surprised Jizania hadn’t warned me, or told me everything. Or that he had to pretend.
That’s all bad enough. But there’s this other thing. Jizania was determined to send me off with Nemian, to keep her vow. So did she lie to me as well about my mother being royal? She couldn’t say both my parents were royalty – I’d have seen the House wouldn’t exile a prince and a princess. But the story of a princess falling in love with her servant rang true.
Of course, Ironel knew my name, or the full name Jizania told me was mine. Claidissa Star. Jizania must also have promised the Law she’d give this name to the chosen child. But then, you see, she could just have made sure some child of around the right age, any old child, did get this name. And that just happened to be me. So my name doesn’t prove a thing.
And she’d seen I was nuts on Nemian. So I’d go on with the lie in any case, making him believe I was a princess and worthy of him.
I mean, do I strike you as princess material?
Heaven knows who I really am. Or who I really was—
Because now, I belong here, to the Tower. To the Law. To this place of stones, where their statues make even animals ugly.
And for this I gave up Argul. I made him think I didn’t care. And that ring he dropped – oh, it was for me. Of course it was. He was for me, and I was for him. And anyway, even if he was just being kind – I could have been out there, in the world, in the Waste-which-isn’t. Free. I could cry or laugh until I was sick. But instead, I’ll go on writing. There’s more to say. If you can stand it.
THE LAW: KEEPING
In the evening, I dined with Ironel.
Her apartment is sprawling. The size of the Travellers’ Rest. Maybe not quite.
The Wolf Tower, as Nemian told me in non-lying mode, is the most powerful of the four Towers that rule the City on Wide River.
But the food wasn’t up to much.
She only drinks her mud drink. I think it’s because she hasn’t got teeth, and doesn’t dare chip the fabulous pearl ones.
Candles burned on an iron candlebranch that was standing on the table, and was taller than I am.
Why am I talking about candles?
By then, she’d shown me the holy part of the Tower. Holy used to mean to do with God, but now, despite Nemian’s poetic spoutings that I liked so much, the Law the Wolf Tower makes is ‘holy’, and more holy than anything else.
The Law.
I don’t know how to start to tell you. It’s – it’s – I’d better calm down. Again, I’ll start again.
Once, all four Towers had a say in making the Law. Then there was a fight, or something, which the Wolf Tower won. So now the Wolf Tower does it, and everyone else obeys.
There are no servants, no maids. Only slaves. But the royal people who fill the City, and who the slaves serve, they too – are slaves. Slaves to the Law of the Wolf Tower. And so am I. I have been since I let Nemian escape from the House. Or even since I first thought I loved him.
It stinks.
The holy area, in which I now ‘live’, clusters around the main room, which they call the Room.
It isn’
t – amazingly – very big, this Room.
But it’s black as dead burnt wood.
Huge lamps, too large for the Room, burn with pale, feverish fires.
Along the walls are shelves, and stacked there, like the books in the House library, are black boxes. And in the boxes, carefully filed and preserved by slaves of the Room, who suffer if they get it wrong, are cards with the names of every man, woman, child and infant in the City. There are even names of ones who’ve died – or, I hope, maybe run away. But they keep them anyway, with a red mark on the little card.
They enter new ones too. I saw this, the first night. She did it. Ironel.
The slaves brought a box, and another slave, from a house in the City that had had a baby, brought a card with the baby’s name. Ironel took the card, read it, smiled, and put it on top of the box. That was all. The slave has to number and file it correctly. And, as I said, if he or she doesn’t—
Bizarre enough.
But what actually catches one’s attention in the Room at once, are the Dice.
Ironel said they were dice.
I said (you see, my light’s not put out yet) (don’t know why not), ‘What are Dice, madam?’
She told me, and told me their use in the Law. Do you know about dice? I’m still a bit blank really. The Dice have eight sides. Every side is painted with a number, from one to eight, inclusive.
How to show you. Well – let me draw it.
They are this shape:
Like some cut diamonds – almost. There are only two of them.
They’re held up in silver-gilded sort of – things. Which remind me of egg-cups, only with pieces cut out, so most of the shape of the Dice is visible.
And the dice can move. They have to. They spin and turn over in many directions. This happens four times a day, at dawn, at noon, at sunset, at midnight.
What makes them spin like this I don’t understand. Some mechanism. But Ironel has to be there. And – once I’ve learnt – I have to be there. Instead of Ironel.
They call her the Wolf’s Paw.
That’s what I’ll be called.
Wolf’s Paw.
