Queen of the Wolves

by Tanith Lee

When I woke again, the sun was up, shining in my face.

  The valley was what it had looked like. Arid slopes and hummocks, with sparse, dun-coloured grass. One or two wan and spindly trees. Stones, boulders. No water I could see.

  This muddled on to the horizon, and on the horizon there was nothing new.

  Lovely.

  All this to do on a small bottle of water, half a sandwich, three or four hours sleep.

  Too bad. Ahead (somewhere), lay the town. With Zeera’s house. And Argul. He would be there. He must be there. Or if not – someone who would know something.

  In those books I read, a talking animal which guided you always did so for a good reason.

  I allowed myself one chomp of the half sandwich, and reduced it to a quarter sandwich. Then I strode off east, towards the sun.

  THE TENT

  Anyway, less than ten minutes later, I found a ROAD.

  There was no doubt. It was even paved, if not very well. Along the sides grew a few more of the poor old trees. Coming around the slight upslope, I’d mistaken it at first for some natural gulley. Fortunately went down and looked.

  It wobbled off north-east, but soon there was a big rough-cut stone which read (in my own language, which I must not forget is also the language of the Towers) Panther’s Halt – Keep Right On.

  Also I hadn’t been on it more than half an hour before some carts came bumbling along out of the wasteland, and got on to the road about thirty yards ahead of me.

  So far as I could see, there were three carts, all drawn by what looked like goats.

  To begin with I was glad they were ahead, and I lagged back. In my experience, it isn’t always sensible to trust one’s fellow travellers.

  Then I thought maybe they were all right, and might know something, so I quickened my pace.

  As I got closer, I could see they were glancing back at me, even the goats were glancing back, but they made no effort to slow down.

  There were three men and three women, and three goats. In the drab landscape they all wore very gaudy clothing, of reds and oranges, while the goats were black and white, or would have been, because somehow somebody had dyed their white parts, so the goats were black and puce, or black and aquamarine blue.

  ‘Fine morning,’ I said, trying to sound and appear both harmless and well-armed, smashing good company and nobody’s fool. Thinking about it, I suppose all the things I totally never am.

  The carters looked me over, still not hesitating. One of the men said something and it was in some other language. So I had to shrug, and look ever so sorry – yet not concerned. (And also as if I might secretly understand – in case they were plotting something.) (I mean, what, for heaven’s sake? Dying me blue and puce, perhaps. Well, you never know.)

  Then one of the women leaned from her cart and said a couple of things in the other language. And then: ‘You go Panther’s Halt, you do?’

  ‘Yes,’ I exclaimed, all plots flung to the winds.

  And I thought perhaps she would ask me to sit in the cart. But no such luck.

  ‘You want goat?’

  ‘A goat? Oh, no, thanks.’

  ‘Glamorous and work-good goat. See! In bestest colour.’

  ‘No, thanks, really.’

  One of the men chipped in quickly, ‘We change the colour if you want.’

  ‘No – no.’

  ‘Any colour – merf, cashrob, coppice – ranaky, we do ranaky for you. Even horns we do!’

  Why is it I never meet anyone normal?

  Is it me?

  ‘No goat,’ I said firmly. ‘Thank you.’

  At which they all, goats included, turned from me, and refused to speak to me again during the rest of the trek to Panther’s Halt. At least the goats didn’t try any sales patter. After the panther, I’d half expected them to.

  Not long after this episode, we went up quite a steep small hill, and from the top I could see, some way off, something blooming there on the dullness of the plain. It looked absurdly like a great, deep-pink flower.

  ‘What is that?’ I asked the goat-people.

  But they wouldn’t talk to me, so I had to wait to find out.

  I don’t think Argul ever was here before, or perhaps he was … But Dagger wasn’t, surely, or she’d have told me about this unusual – to me – town, Panther’s Halt. Or are there lots of other towns just like it?

  Panther’s Halt is all under one vast Tent.

  And not just any enormously vast tent, either. It is made of some special weather-proofed material, and raised at its top at least twenty feet higher than the roof of the tallest house on the tallest hill up there, inside the town. Standing in the streets of the Halt, you look up and see these higher streets and buildings tapering up into the cyclamen-pink dome of the Tent. It’s like being under an always-blushing dawn.

  There are millions of tiny holes made in the material, secured by thin rings of some metal which, it seems, can’t rust. (?) Through these ringed holes faint musical whinnings of breezes blow, and the very occasional single spot of rain. But as a rule, the Tent keeps off all weather, including the searing midday sun, which otherwise burns and drains the valley.

  Inside the Tent, trees grow on the streets. They’re still pastel, but quite luxuriant.

  At night lamps will apparently come on, far up in the canopy of the Tent. So that even at night, the blush-dawn effect will continue.

  These lamps never have to be lit or put out. At night they light, at sunrise they darken. They have a soft clear radiance, which doesn’t flicker. Familiar? They’re exactly like the lamps at the Rise. Ustareth’s lights.

  Is that really so surprising?

  She has this house here, Dagger said.

  Did Ustareth-Zeera therefore arrange the lights and the town’s Tent?

  Round the edges of the town, just outside the Tent, are canals, into which any moisture or rain, which collects on the Tent top, is eventually dislodged.

  After heavy storms, or when there is a build-up of water on the Tent top, there is a Rope-Shaking Brigade, who go outside and shake the ropes fixed between the ground and the upper Tent, and so knock off the water. The Brigade is highly respected. They wear a uniform – black, with Tent-pink epaulettes and buttons, and black-lacquered helmets to protect them when they shake the water down to the canals.

  The canals are additionally full of ducks. The ducks, plus thousands of other birds, come in and out of the town by means of folded-back openings kept wide by day. Lots of birds perch along a sort of scaffolding which in places upholds the Tent from inside.

  I have a language problem here.

  Despite the stone on the road, not many people speak mine. They do speak a bit of Hulta, which I’ve learned rather haphazardly. (I know a lot of Hulta swearing, and affection-words, and even whole songs, and lots of whole sentences – but, well, I was only really starting to get properly to grips with it when – when I was taken away.)

  But it’s not too bad. Just – oh completely frustrating. I simply haven’t been able to ask about Argul, because I haven’t the words. Not even about Z-U’s house, which is almost certainly where he is staying, if he is here.

  I’ve been wandering the streets all day, too tired now to feel anything but violently alert and awake, too hungry to want to eat. But I’m thirsty.

  They have these fountains here. They are on almost every street, and in the big square, where there is a market, there are four. The sparkling water gushes over them, and on each, in several different languages – including mine – are these big black words: DO NOT DRINK.

  At first I thought it was just nastiness. Then I realized the water may look all right, but it’s probably not drinkable, poisonous even. (I am sitting by a fountain now, writing this, and it’s driving me nuts.)

  I’m thinking of going out again to the canals for a drink. Full of ducks and duck feathers, not to mention little parcels of ducky do.

  Of course, I have no money. And they use money here. Also barter – but I have
nothing I can afford to let go. I’m walking around with a diamond ring and an embroidered Hulta wedding-dress in my bag, and have a honed blade through my belt. But these are the most precious things in my life.

  I’ve done this all wrong.

  Without any difficulty, I’d say, Yinyay could have found me some money notes, or something marketable, before she shrank. Didn’t think to ask. Or even search.

  How typical.

  Serves me right then.

  Oh, there goes another goat. Black and pea-green. Very tasteful.

  (Those goat people must have brought them to sell them, and when I came belting after them, thought I wanted to buy one quickly. So they weren’t as dotty as I reckoned. Though they were rude.)

  And another goat – black and pink, like the Rope-Shakers. (An old man told me about the Rope-Shakers, in halting Hulta, after some of the Brigade swaggered by. A passing girl also told me about the lamps, seeing me staring up at them in the Tent top. Possibly they just have these sightseer sentences ready prepared in many languages.)

  There are no horses for sale in the market.

  When I said (in Hulta), ‘Horses?’ to someone, just to see, this person laughed. I think he replied, sold out.

  No panthers either. Not that I’ve noticed.

  I am tired. I’d like to lie down and sleep somewhere quiet. And I’m thirsty enough to drink a bath full of pooey duckwater. And really I’m starving.

  This room’s all right. The woman warned me I’d be woken by the noise of the morning market starting under my window. But I didn’t wake. I must have slept from late afternoon yesterday until the same today.

  I feel much better. I can think more clearly. Which is a shame, in a way, because now I can really worry.

  And the worst thing of all? In order to get this room in this inn, and a meal and so on – I sold my wedding dress. Do you think I’m beneath contempt? I feel very, very bad about it.

  What happened was, I was sitting by that fountain, when this man came up. He looked rather like the goat-people in dress, but then he thrust his face into mine and squinted at me with his narrow little eyes.

  ‘What you selling?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What you selling? Great strong girl like you’ – somehow he made this sound insulting, as if I were extremely tall and beefily heavy and loud – ‘come on, come on. I’ll hire you.’

  ‘For what?’ I said.

  I felt threatened, and although there were plenty of people about, I didn’t know whether they’d care if I got attacked.

  ‘Well,’ said the repulsive man, ‘you can clean up. Do the washing. Cook the supper. How’s that?’

  ‘No, thank you ever so much.’

  But he leered. He reminded me of certain servants, and even the occasional royal person at the House, who I’d always tried to keep well clear of.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You might get to like me.’

  ‘You’re very nice. But I’m waiting for someone.’

  Then he swelled like a toad, got even fatter and uglier, and I put my unskilled hand on the dagger in my belt. And then someone else leaned over him, and dragged him bodily away, as if he were a bag of rubbish, and just sort of threw him casually down several feet off.

  ‘Leave the lady alone,’ said the new someone.

  I thought there might be a fight. But instead the first man was grovelling there on the ground. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he was mumbling, ‘didn’t know she was with you—’

  The newcomer said, ‘She’s not.’ Then he turned to me and gave me a jaunty salute.

  He was tall, thin, and dry for the other one’s oily stout shortness. Not young, or old. A black stubble of hair crowned his head. He wore creaky black leather.

  ‘Are you here on business, madam?’ he politely asked.

  I got up. He towered over me. But he spoke my language (so had the other one, alas) so I said, ‘No, I’m here looking for someone.’

  ‘And who is that?’

  ‘Well,’ cautious now I added, ‘for their house, really.’

  ‘A house.’ He gave me a dry thin smile. His skin looked like that paper you can sand things down with. ‘I regret, I’m a stranger here myself.’

  And then he bowed and walked off. Couldn’t help noticing, people got out of his way.

  To my dismay the other one came gobbling back at once. But he only wanted to say, ‘Sorry, dear. Sorry. Didn’t know, miss, you knew Jelly.’

  Then he too hurried off.

  Jelly.

  At Peshamba I saw jellies served for the children. They’d been set in exotic moulds, and come out in the shapes of rabbits and lions and stars and suns, and all in jewel-like colours. Happy party food.

  Jelly???

  Still, it had been lucky he was there.

  I decided then I’d better get sorted out, before anything else happened. And I went straight over to a booth that was selling clothes, some of which were clearly second-hand.

  Without letting myself think, I produced the embroidered wedding-dress. ‘What will you give me for this?’ I didn’t know if they understood – they seemed to understand what I was trying to do at least. ‘It’s a family heirloom. Hardly worn, I know it’s stained. That’s from a long sea voyage, therefore interesting. The embroidery is Hulta.’

  They gave me coins and rushed the dress away behind the booth, so I was fairly sure I’d been done.

  I’ve felt horrible about it ever since, even dreamed about it, I think, during the deep sleep in this inn-room.

  But I still have the diamond ring. I’m not confident enough to wear it after the thing with the rings, at the Rise. I don’t know what powers it has – and they’re erratic. But I would never sell it. Even though, before she gave it to Argul, it was hers. Zeera-Ustareth.

  Now I’m up, washed (even hair), have had some breakfast-lunch. I’m going to find that house today.

  Wonder how Yinyay is managing in the storage of the Star – learning things, did she say? I wonder too how Venn is, all across the ocean. And Jotto and Treacle and Grem.

  And Argul. How and where are you?

  Really, I think I was just certain by now I wasn’t going to find Argul at Panther’s Halt. That the best I could hope for was a clue.

  Why was this? I’d suspected I would feel something electric in the air of the Tent town, if he had been here too. Then – I had felt that, sort of – but didn’t trust what I felt.

  The already-late day got later as I trudged around the streets. They were paved, but hilly. And also the paving was fairly cracked and rather unsafe. Yesterday I hadn’t seen the lights come on, I’d been asleep. But now, as the daylight through the under-Tent began to fade, suddenly the lamps opened their cool eyes, and everything went pinker than ever.

  The birds were flying in to their scaffolding roosts, tweeting and trilling. No doubt the lights also help keep them warm during the cold nights. Trails of birds arrowed and darted over the pink dome ‘sky’. Droppings fell like white streamers, and people dashed to gather them in little pots(??).

  Between dodging droppings, I was trying to get a look at all the bigger houses on hill tops. Wouldn’t her house be one of these? A commanding view of the town, and so on. Then again, she might have wanted a concealed house, tucked away in a big garden of thick bushy trees.

  I had just reached the wall of such a garden. A wide gate stood open, and down a long coiling path I could now see another sort of light among the shrubbery. Paper lanterns, rose, crimson, blue. There was the sound of merrymaking and clink of glasses and jugs.

  ‘Why, hallo again,’ said a dry voice behind me. ‘What a coincidence. Are you too going to the goat-wedding?’

  I jumped round – hadn’t heard a step or anything – and there he was. Jelly.

  ‘The – what did you say?’

  ‘Goat-wedding. Shall we?’ He bowed, as he had before. Something about the bow – it’s what they do for royalty in the Houses and the Towers.

  Had he foll
owed me?

  Was I only being over-sensitive?

  But he’d put his hand courteously under my elbow, and we were walking into the garden. As if on a long-arranged outing.

  ‘Let me introduce myself,’ he said. ‘I am Jelly.’

  ‘Hi.’ (His hand was icy. I was glad when he removed it.)

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh.’ Efficient as ever, I hadn’t thought beforehand I might not want to give my name to everyone. So I hadn’t prepared a fake name, and for a moment I dithered.

  ‘If I am being too forward, there’s no need to say, naturally,’ he assisted me, sounding now indescribably threatening and sinister.

  An idea surfaced. Chancy – but let me see how he took it.

  ‘Of course I can tell you my name. It’s Ustareth,’ I announced.

  And he stopped dead. His long thin face stared down at me, all chin, and even the chin looking interested.

  ‘Uss-taar-eth,’ he intoned. His pouchy eyes glittered. ‘What a fascinating name.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I gushed.

  ‘A City name, I think,’ he said. ‘The City on the River, surely. From a Tower?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know,’ I said. ‘My mum thought it up.’

  ‘Your mother thought it up?’

  ‘Oh, they all used to laugh in my village,’ I rambled on, unwisely warming to my game. ‘Bat’s Junction Village. You know it? No? I thought everyone had heard of Bat’s Junction. Anyway, they used to tease me rotten.’

  ‘How trying,’ he said.

  He seemed to like this too, and that chilled me down. Games – he liked games – the Towers like games. The Wolf Tower.

  He is from the Wolf Tower? From Ironel—

  ‘Your name is so much more interesting,’ I twittered. ‘Jelly—’

  ‘Oh let’s not talk about me.’

  We were in among the paper lanterns by now, and the noisy crowd was falling back from us, cheery faces going all tense as they registered him.

  ‘I believe you said you were looking for someone’s house?’ he now asked me.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right. The house of my mother’s cousin—’