by Tanith Lee
She reads the Dice when they come to rest, from the way in which all the numbered sides fall and face. And from that, looking in three books of ancient mathematics, which lie handy on a marble table in the Room, she can tell what the Law is saying must be done. And who must do it.
Although the Dice must often fall the same way – only two of them you see, and only eight sides each – apparently the day, and time of day always make a difference, or something to do with the maths – or what phase of the moon we’re in – can you follow this? I can’t.
So, I don’t understand the books, or the Dice.
Or the way she can tell who must do what.
But apparently one can work it out, in numbers. Every spin of the Dice shows something someone has to do. You then tie up the message the Dice give with sixteen City people (for the two lots of eight different sides.) And that happens four times a day.
So that’s – I can’t even work that out.
I’m hopeless with numbers – four times sixteen – that’s sixty-four people every day and night. (I worked it out on a different bit of paper.)
And whatever the Wolf’s Paw tells them the Law says they must do, these sixty-four, they MUST. Each day.
Ironel gave me examples.
Nemian married Moon Silk because a fall of the Dice told him he should. (How about her?)
And Nemian came after me and found me, and brought me back here, because another fall of the Dice said he had to. (And how about me?)
The point is, if you’re picked and you don’t obey, or you blow it, they imprison you under the City, in dank darkness, where the River seeps through. (She liked telling me about that, as well.)
Apart from mere horror, I can barely add up. Science is a mystery to me. How in the world’s name am I going to master these awful Dice, these dreadful books of numbers and moon phases?
I didn’t admit this. Just stood there, all cool.
Ironel let me see her make her judgement that sunset. It looked easy when she did it. But then she’s done it for over fifty years. The Dice whirl and end up sideways or upright. She goes over and looks at them. Then she walks to the books. She makes a big thing about the books, keeps telling me there are only these three in the City, and how precious they are. (She showed me, in them, the hundreds of columns of numbers and my head went round like the Dice.)
She ran her finger down the columns, flipped pages, clicked her tongue on her pearls.
Then she spoke the Law, and the slaves wrote down each order. After this, messengers (slaves) of the Wolf Tower, carry the orders to the lucky persons concerned.
The messages of the Law were frightful, though.
Some man (number 903, I think) had to leave his house and go and live on the street as ‘best he could’. (Incredible.) And number 5,334, a little girl, was to be made to wear the disguise of a snail, complete with shell.
I forget the others. They weren’t so bad. No, one was. I don’t even want to write it.
But I will write it. I don’t remember the number, or who. But they had to dive into the river, and swim up and down. They might rest on islands, or the banks, for a few minutes when ‘exhausted’. Their relatives might bring them food and ‘comforts’.
There was no indication when this punishment would end. If it ever would. It wasn’t called a punishment.
And this – this – is the Law.
They live here, and some people can go their whole lives without ever the Dice summoning up their numbers and names, so they need never do anything but enjoy themselves. Or they might be told to do something rather stupid, but not unnice, like going and buying a new shirt.
Or they might be told they must have a baby, before a year has passed.
Or that they must stand naked on a wall. Or go into the desert and fight a lion.
And I’m going to have to find this out from the Dice. And I’m then going to have to tell them. I’m going to be Wolf’s Paw. To be her.
She said, I’d grow old here.
If I don’t learn, God knows what they’ll do to me. And I won’t be able to.
But I don’t want to be able to. I don’t want to hurt people, make fools of them, blight their lives like this, and smiling as I do it, as she does.
My rooms are large. There’s a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room. Brocades and furs and fireplaces and lamps.
One wall with dresses thick with gold and jewels. I hate them.
Five slaves to wait on me.
When I take her place, I’ll have more. I’ll have everything I ‘want’.
Except I must always be available for when the Dice mechanically turn, to read the books and interpret the Law. And give it.
That night, after the midnight Dice, I made believe I’d gone to sleep in the luxurious white satin bed.
I got up in blind darkness, and tried to go out.
But the slaves were there, leaping up to ‘serve’ me.
And their eyes are like the eyes of the moon alligators in the marsh. Cold and blind. Without a mind or heart.
Sometimes the Wolf’s Paw goes out in a procession, she’d told me. Next day I asked to go walking.
No obstacle. Except the five slaves who walked with me. And that man in a white uniform, with the rifle.
Very few people passed us. Most were carried in chairs by slaves.
None of the slaves have faces. Well they do, but they might as well be made of paper. They don’t seem human.
The buildings soar into the never changing rainy gloom.
I prowl these rooms. The windows have cute lattices of gilded iron, and anyway are ten man-heights from the ground, or more. I’m a prisoner.
Well, I have considered various tricks – the sort you read of in books. Giving slaves the slip, running very fast, pretending to be ill in case they then relax their watchfulness, assuming they are watchful … which they are, aren’t they? But somehow, I don’t think this will work, any of it. I mean, they are always there. And the City itself does watch. Not crystals, like Peshamba, black poking things, like guns, turning to follow you on the streets.
Everyone’s name is in those boxes, even mine, now, and hers.
I’m so afraid I don’t even feel loss. And when she lectures me on the mathematics in the precious books, she seems to think I understand – and I don’t, of course I don’t. I was never educated. Two and two make three.
Is she mad? Or just so old – she asks questions and I attempt to answer, I bluff or I say nothing, and she doesn’t fault me. She nods.
I haven’t seen anyone else for some time. Only the slaves, and the guard in white. And occasionally people passing far below on the paved streets of this doomy City. And her.
The Law is a game. I mean, they play a game, and call it a law, and failure to obey it is death.
And Ironel is keeper of the Law until I learn the rules. And then I’m the keeper. (And when I think, the Rituals of the House used to annoy me.)
Nemian seems like someone I made up. Argul does too. And you – well, I did make you up. But oh, you, you, help me – tell me what to do – help, help me, you’re the only one I can turn to. And obviously, you can’t answer.
How curious. It was as if I heard you, calling. All sorts of words and voices. And it did help me.
Thank you …
Thank you.
WOLVES
She’s ill.
She did the dawn Law today – I don’t have to be there for those – then went back to bed.
A slave told me, and I had to go and visit her. Another slave handed me one of those red flowers to give her. Apparently that’s a polite way to show her I think she’ll soon get better.
(Would have liked to chuck it out of a window. Didn’t.)
Ironel sat up in her bed, which is like a boat for size, with curtains of golden chains.
She looked all right to me.
When she’d sent everyone out, she said to me, ‘I’ve never told you the reason for the Law, have I, which I must, since you’re learning s
o fast and so very well.’
I gulped. She’s dotty.
But she said, ‘Random blows, and insane adventures. The Law copies life.’
That was all. I didn’t understand, but just nodded, coolly, and gazed into space as if deeply thinking.
Then she made me really jump. She laughed. It was an awful old cackle, you can imagine, and those pearl teeth bouncing about in it.
‘Claidissa, dear,’ she said, when she could, ‘you may have to take over the Law very soon. I’m ill. It’s too much for me. So be ready. Get fit. Go out for a walk, Claidissa. Walk around our spectacular City. Look at the darling River. Have some exercise. Think about what I’ve told you. You will be a Wolf of the Tower. And those powerful Dice, those delicious rare books, those important boxes, by which we live.’
I was shaking. I said, ‘Yes, madam.’
Her word is Law, isn’t it. I’d have to take over. And I’d have to have a walk! (And go down the Tower again in one of those lifters.)
So I’ll do that. I’ll walk. I can do that. I can’t read the books or do the Law thing. I might as well jump in the River.
I don’t think I said, I had to wear the proper clothes now always. People were supposed to know who I was – the next WP. No wonder no one spoke to me, or looked.
These dresses are so heavy. I felt like a beetle or a lizard, all wrapped up in scales and bits of carapace. My hair too, wound up on a golden comb, and pulling. I didn’t know myself in mirrors any more. Which fitted with how I felt, pretty much.
This time, though, down in the City, I studied things with more care. I’m not sure why. Guilt maybe, because I wasn’t going to jump in the River.
The people who passed, carried in ornate chairs, or sometimes walking, with slaves pattering behind, they all looked the same. They looked like me. Overdressed, starched, and so unhappy.
Well I didn’t need to be a genius, did I, to realize why. They lived here because they felt they had to, or surely they’d have gone. And while they did, even if the Law so far had never fallen on them or anyone they cared about, four times every day they knew it still could, and probably would.
I wandered down below the Wolf Tower, and along the banks, quays, they say here, where tall grim ships are tied by chains. Then the River gets wide again, and you can’t see the far bank, which is just how Nemian described it.
Rain plished miserably.
And I noticed someone swimming in that icy grey water.
I knew who it was. Who it had to be. The one whose number I don’t remember.
Tears flooded down my face. I clenched my fists.
This was all crazy. It was a nightmare.
One of the slaves came over and offered me a hanky to mop up. The one with the umbrella I’d sent off crept close again.
I turned on them.
‘I want to be left alone.’ Their faces were flat, and told me nothing. ‘All right. Stand there. I’m just going across into that square. I’m going – to buy something. Don’t follow. I don’t need you yet.’
To my amazement, as I started to walk they didn’t. Even the guard with the rifle.
Was it so simple?
I’d never thought of this. That they’d just do what I said. Could I dodge away and make a run for it?
Where though? Beyond the City, I’d seen, was only that grey bare deserty land. And anyway, would they let me go, that is, the City itself? The House hadn’t bothered to pursue me. I knew now why. Jizania had made sure Nemian and I got away. But here it would be different, although for the same reason.
I crossed the street and went into the square. Perhaps I should still try to make some plan—
There was a group of people over at the end of the square. That surprised me. I hadn’t often seen any big group here before.
They do use money in the City. I’d been given a chest full of those blue-green notes Nemian had had. Although everyone seemed to be royal, some of the people here made things, although they weren’t very good. They sold them to each other. (Clothes and food and urgent stuff the slaves saw to, without of course being paid.)
Was someone here selling something? The crowd seemed very interested, which wasn’t usual either.
There seemed to be someone sitting on the ground. And two others lounging against a pillar. The ground here wasn’t made for sitting on, and the pillars weren’t for lounging against. It also looked as if these three odd people were slaves, too, because they weren’t sparkling.
As I got nearer and nearer, I saw there were children as well, standing staring in their awful tight jewellery-beetle clothes. But suddenly they all squealed, and there was a brilliant flash, yellow, blue, and up into the air shot all these burning stars—
Fireworks! I knew at once from what Nemian had said. The City had fireworks, but I’d never seen any before.
There were slaves standing around the back of the crowd, also watching the man sitting on the ground.
Then there was a little crack, and the children went Ooooh! like real children. And into the air rose a bird of fire. It was emerald and purple, and slowly, beautifully, it spread a fan-tail of gold—
A peacock. A firework peacock.
I’d reached the edge of the crowd. No. The three men, now I could really see them, didn’t belong in this City. They were old and filthy, their long old hair and long scraggly old beards full of bits of mud and twig, like badly made nests. Their faces looked like crumpled dirty rags. Their clothes were rags. Layers of rags and gruesome old fur jackets.
The seated old man moved his hands, in dirty darned gloves, and out of the thin air between them bloomed a ball of colours. And birds flew out of it, white, like pigeons. They flew up, and I thought Oh God, what will happen to them here? Because I hadn’t seen a single bird or animal in the City that wasn’t stone. Not even a fly. And never trees, or any flowers – only those red things called Immortals.
However, the birds dissolved in light. They hadn’t been real.
And of course, then I thought of how Argul had taken the living sparrow out of Teil’s ear.
But I wasn’t going to cry any more.
The children were laughing and pointing. Little rabbits made of light were jumping round their ankles. (Had they ever seen rabbits?) And there were some smiles from the adults, too. Even – my God – one of the slaves was smiling. Hey!
The darker old man leaning on the pillar was giving me a funny look. The other one abruptly shouted three very strong words.
The crowd didn’t take much notice. They didn’t know these words weren’t polite, as I hadn’t when I used to hear them first.
‘Tronking okk grulps!’
Oddly, the second darker old man turned and thumped, with surprising force, the other old man on the chest.
And the other old man roared in a hurt voice: ‘Watch it, Mehm. She’s h—’
‘Then don’t make a scene, man.’
I wasn’t standing on the street any more. I was floating up and up. Like the magical chemical lights Argul’s scientist-magician mother must have taught him how to make.
He was getting to his feet now, the doddery seated old man. Of the three, he could have won a prize for the disgustingness of his beard. He took some time, too, so stiff and ungainly.
The children were clamouring for more tricks. Instead he was handing each of them an apple baked in toffee, from Peshamba, probably. And to each adult – and slave – a Peshamban chocolate sweet in coloured paper.
Then he came grunting and hobbling over, snuffling, leering, his ghastly mucky beard flapping, until he stood in front of me, and I had to look up to reach his eyes.
Behind him, Mehmed and Ro slapped each other (clouds of filth rose) and guffawed. The children were prancing and tearing chunks out of the toffee apples. The adults were wonderingly unwrapping their sweets. It broke your heart. You could see they too had never been given anything very nice, and never for free.
‘Hallo, Claidi-sheepy-baa,’ said Argul, through his brilliant di
sguise, the cakes of make-up and mud and horsehair stuck on his face. ‘Got yourself in a mess again, I gather.’
‘Yes, Argul.’
‘Don’t cry. I never saw you cry.’
‘It’s the rain.’
‘Oh yeah. Of course.’
In the porch of a building, out of the rain, we spoke so quickly to each other, as if there was no time. But as the Peshamban CLOCK said, There’s time enough for everything.
(Through the rain, I could see my slaves and guard, still unmoving at the edge of the square, waiting, presumably noticing me talking to this wild old man, and not knowing what went on.)
‘Why did you follow me? You were so angry—’
‘That changed. And I didn’t trust him. So. It took a while to get here. He’d talked a lot about his perfect City and glorious Wolf Tower. Can’t miss it, can you. What an eyesore. Wolves aren’t like that.’
‘No … What are they like?’
He laughed. ‘Still Claidi. They’re brave and loyal. They fight when they have to, or they don’t fight. They like each other and stick together. Hulta. That’s wolves.’
‘Argul—’
‘I saw you ditched your guard. If we just walk slowly, maybe—’
‘No, I’ve thought about all that. They won’t let me go. If I got away, they’d come after. It’s their rotten Law.’
‘We have to take the chance. I’ve brought Sirree. Yes, she’s well. She missed you.’
‘I missed her. Oh, Sirree—’
I stood gazing at this dirty wreck who was HIM.
In the holes and tatters of his shirt, I saw the glass charm winking.
‘I can’t, Argul. It’s too dangerous.’
‘Chicken.’
‘I am. And for you, too. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
He put his hand up over the charm. ‘See this,’ he said.
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Remember I looked at it when you were in the Sheeper chariot?’
‘Yes.’
‘It tells me things. My mother – she said if ever I saw – if I saw a woman who meant something to me—’ He stopped.
He was embarrassed. Here, in the middle of all this. I looked down, to give him a chance. And he said, ‘The stuff in the bulb, that you think looks like glass, is a chemical. It reacts if I do. I mean, if the feeling is real. And it does react, Claidi.’ He slipped the charm-which-wasn’t off, and held it in his hand, and I saw the glass-which-wasn’t turn cloudy, and then a kind of movement happened inside. That was all. But it was love I was looking at.
