Queen of the Wolves

by Tanith Lee

  It can’t have taken long. A few minutes. I’ll never forget it. That rising, clutching two of the chains, seeing these over-dressed, chattery people floating up with me, through a fog of cloud, their crystal goblets and jewels glinting. And every so often, the colossal walls of the mountains glimpsing through all round, so huge and far off and near all at once—

  I thought I’d be sick.

  Was looking round and down at who I thought I’d like best, of the ones rising up below me, to be sick on – when Ngarbo said, ‘See, we’re there.’

  No longer rising, they were all taking weird swimming steps forward – walking now, in the sky. Something loomed, warmer, bright – we were there.

  The tray grounded. Ngarbo took my arm to stop me falling flat on my face. My chest felt tight. I was dizzy.

  Someone else had my other arm.

  ‘That was a rotten trick – she didn’t tell you about that, did she? My mother can be a real so-and-so.’

  Blearily I turned and saw my arch-enemy, Winter Raven, was helping hold me up. She wore gold striped with black – and looked like a wasp.

  I shook her off. Stood straight.

  ‘No, I think she did somehow forget to mention it.’

  ‘It’s these,’ said WR. She pointed at her amber necklace. ‘And her turquoise. We all have jewellery that can do it. Lift us up, get us down. They have magnets in them.’

  That was like the Star. Yinyay had said – the ship’s magnets reacted to gravity, absorbing and cancelling it to let the Star rise, gradually reintroducing it to let the Star land.

  Why was WR being friendly and sympathetic? Some new plot—

  I turned. Argul was there.

  Even in a state, I saw he looked Amazing. All in scarlet and gold, his still-short hair gleaming black silk, his skin tea-dark again. But he was strained, his eyes wide on me.

  ‘Are you all right, Claidi?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘That was either meant,’ he said, ‘to be a brilliant thrill for us – or a big smack in the gob.’

  She spoke, ‘Smack in the gob.’

  ‘Well, you’d know,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I am sorry about the other day. But look – I’d have at least told you about this beforehand. I don’t like the games they play either, you know. My mother, my father – when he can be bothered. They mess me about, too. I’ve had seventeen years of it.’

  Green crocodile Twilight was there.

  ‘Now you can be together, my dears,’ she said to Argul and me. ‘It’s quite all right.’

  ‘No one told them about the flight up,’ said Winter.

  ‘Really? I’m sure someone was meant to…’

  I saw Argul give her his first unliking look. She raised her brows.

  Up here – for the first time, standing beside him, I looked around. I mean, where on earth – where off earth – were we?

  We’d come in through an arch, very tall and wide. There was a floor of tiles, dark and gleaming. If it hadn’t been though for the shine of the lamps and candles on their stands, the shine of them in the glass walls of the great chamber – I might have thought we were just balanced on one more tray, up in the air.

  The high ceiling was glass too, but mirror. Everything and everyone was reflected up there. Staring up, I looked into my own far-off upturned face.

  At the other end of the long room, a great fountain. Even I could see it wasn’t water. Out of spouts in the beaks of white stone birds, from the held-high trumpets of white stone people, gushed gushes of something tinted every colour in the world.

  ‘Air fountains,’ said Winter Raven. ‘It’s necessary. The air’s thin up here, you see.’ (I was relieved I hadn’t just been panting from being cowardly.)

  I thought, Hrald would love this.

  I thought, How does this glass room stay put? Like the Star-ship, maybe. More magnets, of course.

  I’ve never understood about those magnets. And I wasn’t going to ask now.

  Argul was there, and I could feel the warmth and strength of him, and when he took my hand, it was him. Not any trick—

  Only, there had been so many tricks. Even he – had tricked me, misled me. He’d had to, he’d said. To fool the ones who watched.

  Even so.

  I hadn’t known him – at Panther’s Halt, the Hills, Ice-Walk, Chylomba – all that time I’d ridden after Argul, only it hadn’t been him but a mechanical doll. And meanwhile he, disguised as Jelly, had ridden after me.

  Now musicians were starting to play a stately tune. The crowd drew aside leaving an open lane. At the top of this lane of people, exactly in front of the gushing air fountain, I now saw what must be the altar. It was a stone thing with a black stone raven. Lord Fengrey was there. Looking bored but resigned.

  The Wedding Controller appeared.

  ‘Now then,’ he clucked, tapping his natty stick on his boot.

  So. Argul and I must walk up the aisle, between the staring people of the Raven Tower. Up the aisle of the room in the sky. And when we came to the stone altar, Lord Fengrey would marry us. (If he hadn’t nodded off from uninterest.)

  We walked, in time to the slow music, as the Wedding Controller had just told us we should. Twilight and Winter walked behind us, but not very close.

  Argul spoke to me, under the music.

  ‘This is it, Claidi.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t mean this tronk of a marriage. I mean, Claidi, you are really going to have to trust me – Claidi – listen, whatever I tell you to do, do it. Will you?’

  ‘Yes, Argul.’

  ‘You don’t know what I’m going to ask, Claidi.’

  ‘No. Something – difficult.’

  ‘See that bird thing on the altar?’

  ‘Their Raven god – is it –’

  ‘In a way. When we get there, put your hand out, the hand with your diamond ring I gave you. Don’t let them stop you. Right?’

  ‘My hand with the diamond …’

  ‘Touch the raven.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Claidi, though I love the way you always ask questions at the wrong moment, now is the wrong moment plus.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Touch the raven. It may spit or something. Don’t worry’

  ‘Spit – is it alive?’

  ‘Claidi – no, it’s not alive. Just touch it.’

  ‘Yes, Argul.’

  ‘Do you want them to marry us?’ he abruptly added.

  It was a long way to the altar. The music we must keep time to made the walk very slow. It helped muffle what we said.

  People were laughing on both sides, or laughing at us.

  I could smell the strange acid smell of the air fountain.

  ‘Don’t you want to marry me any more, Argul? I – I thought you still did.’

  ‘I don’t want this load of morbofs to do it. God, Claidi. They overdo everything. Their rituals, their games – their clothes. We wouldn’t be married, we’d be—’

  ‘Over-married.’

  ‘Right. Claidibaabaa, we’ll marry, but somewhere else.’

  I could see Fengrey so clearly now, standing there, piled with robes, at the altar. This bored, over-dressed man – I didn’t want him to have anything to do with us. And T and W lurking at our shoulders. And – breeding us, as Ustareth bred her peculiar animals. Let’s face it, as Venn had almost said – Ustareth bred herself too, to see what she would get. 1) Venn – not good enough. 2) Argul – a success!

  ‘When you’ve touched the stone raven,’ said Argul, ‘I want you to do just one more thing.’

  ‘Yes, Argul?’

  ‘Jump over the fountain.’

  ‘– Argul? It’s about ten man-heights high, isn’t it?’

  Suddenly this explosion of women in frothy dresses boiled out of the crowd, singing and chucking flowers, and we were surrounded.

  ‘Darling,’ growled Argul violently.

  So I knew I mustn’t ask another thing
.

  OUT OF THE CAGE

  We had reached the altar.

  The music ended. The crowd went quiet. I could hear only the gush of the fountain, and the spat-spat of flames in the real lamps.

  I turned and looked up at him. And in that second he drew a knife that maybe they – and certainly I – didn’t know he had in his wedding finery.

  Fengrey’s noble mindless face – swelled as if about to pop.

  I reached forward and gripped the head of the raven statue on the altar. I used both hands, in case.

  A spray of sparks!

  I staggered back, wondering if I was on fire or had been struck by lightning.

  ‘Jump, Claidi!’ Argul shouted.

  I think I knew. It wasn’t only that I trusted him. Perhaps I didn’t trust him, not even Argul, right then.

  But the diamond ring, which had seemed to have such odd powers at the Rise – the diamond was blazing heatless blinding white – a firework.

  So – I jumped. Right for the top of the fountain, sixty feet up in the ceiling.

  Then I was in the ceiling. I was up there, by the mirror – I shrieked as I saw my own reflection rush towards me – a screaming young woman in a silver dress and too many pearls – and just as I thought I’d strike her head-on, smash her and die – the whole roof opened like the petals of an obliging rose—

  And then I was arrowing on into the plum-black cloud – and then Argul grabbed me.

  ‘It’s all right. Down now – we’re too high.’

  ‘But Argul – you’re flying too -’

  ‘You bet.’

  I found we were quite still. Hanging there in mid-air, mid-cloud.

  Ridiculous to the last, I noticed I’d split the skirt of the silver dress.

  ‘How have we stopped?’ I asked.

  ‘You meant to stop, and so did I. That stops us. But we should get down lower. This air’s too thin.’

  ‘What do I—’

  ‘Tell it down, or think down. Either.’

  Yes. The ring reacted to thought, didn’t it? Oh …

  We dropped, quite quickly but not frighteningly so, and the cloud dissolved.

  It was – too mad – too dream-like to be scaring now. Although – I must be scared.

  ‘Argul, how can you fly?’

  ‘Later, Claidi-baari.’

  He veered away and I found I was veering with him.

  Incredible—

  We whizzed through a gulley between two towering crags that gleamed in their armour of snow. Behind, over there, that white-capped dark thing far down was the head of the Raven Tower. (Up against the cloud, I couldn’t see the glassy bubble of Hall Four.)

  Now Argul was landing like a splendid scarlet eagle on a ledge. So – I landed there too. Faultlessly. Then I sat down with a bump. (If I fell right off it wouldn’t matter, would it?)

  ‘We haven’t long,’ he said. ‘Look.’

  I peered back into reeling distance. A flight of bats was circling out against the snows.

  ‘They’re coming after us.’

  ‘What else. Most of the Tower Guard can fly, and all the nobles. Let’s make this fast.’

  We dashed up again. Into the air. I thought what good targets we’d present. I in the flash silver and he in red. Could they shoot – as it were – on the wing?

  I thought – But we are flying.

  How? Why? What is going on?

  We went so fast now. Too fast to think. I simply did what I’d seen him do. Where he dipped, looped, I did. The freezing wind hissed in our faces. My head-dress finally came undone and blew away behind me.

  It wasn’t like that tray with chains – I could even look down – as if I’d done this before … or as if the ring knew and had told me—

  But when I turned I saw them, those dark shapes – they no longer looked like birds or bats – they were running through the air.

  It isn’t flying. I too was doing this running thing, like Argul. We were leaping on and on, upright not lying flat on the air, and holding our arms in to our bodies.

  We raced around a tall white spire that looked almost like a terrible face. Spinning in, I came up on another ledge, and this time didn’t sit down. Argul landed beside me.

  ‘The ring,’ I said.

  ‘It does what it’s supposed to,’ he said.

  We were both gasping from the scanty high mountain air, the cold and rush, the escape. I said, ‘If we keep running, they may keep on chasing. They may catch us. This ring – I think maybe, though I can’t know – I think it can protect us. What I’m saying is, it has more powers than flight. What do you think?’

  He looked at me. He smiled. He said – he said – ‘I’m in your hands.’

  The flank of the mountain still hid our pursuers. Yet I could feel them getting near.

  At the Rise, the diamond had done the wildest things, not all helpful. And then in the end it hadn’t worked at all. But as I looked at it now, it glowed up like an icy sun, answering my unspoken thought. Whatever the ring had been before, now it was itself. And mine.

  In case I made a mistake, I said the words aloud. ‘The ones chasing us, don’t let them take us. Even if they get within arm’s length – keep them off. Please.’

  The ring flared a beam of white fire.

  Will it work?

  It had to.

  And – it did.

  As we stood there, crammed in against the side of the mountain, out of the bottomless snow-corridors of the upper air came sky-running the Guards of the Raven Tower.

  They burst around the mountain, circled in space a moment, calling to each other.

  I saw Vilk, and another one I recognized, seven more, then Ngarbo. None of them looked any more like anyone I’d ever known or would ever want to. Their faces were hard and changed. But they glared – right at us.

  Now they’ll fire. Can the ring deflect bullets?

  They didn’t fire.

  It was Vilk who dived over to the shelf of rock where we stood. As he clutched our bit of mountain with one hand, his eyes met mine – looked through mine.

  He cursed and dropped away. ‘Only a damned shadow.’

  And so I knew.

  Invisible. We were invisible.

  ‘Come on, Vilk!’ Ngarbo shouted. ‘Why are you wasting time?’

  Vilk sheered off.

  They stormed by, and after them swirled another ten, twenty men, all looking round, looking right through us. Furious not to find us, angry ravens against the grey-white crags. Then only small as birds again, bats, flies. Blind – to us. They were gone. Silence closed behind them.

  There was a cave we’d found. We were sitting in it. I’d tried the ring, and the ring had made a neat bright fire for us with one mild wink.

  Perhaps oddest of all, I was already used to the ring, to asking it to do things – astonishing things – and having them done.

  ‘You say please and thank you every time,’ said Argul.

  ‘I prefer to.’

  ‘You have a good heart,’ he said. And I thought of Venn’s grating comments on my thanking of doll-servants and Yinyay in the Star.

  We were warm in the cave, but outside darkness was falling. Then it got light again – white thick snow was coming down.

  Argul had brought some food for us. He had known we’d be leaving the Tower. (I of course had only sensibly brought these books. Oh, and Dagger’s dagger.)

  Once, we heard more of them go by outside. Or the first lot coming back to double-check. Our fire shone in the cave-opening, and they didn’t see it. I don’t know how the ring does this. The main thing is, it does.

  We sat on his marriage cloak.

  ‘I suppose the ring can’t summon some pillows?’ asked Argul.

  ‘It might – but they’d have to come from somewhere, wouldn’t they, and pillows flying in the air might be a giveaway—’

  ‘True. This rock is nice and soft, after all.’

  He put his arm around me. He said, ‘I can try to answer al
l your million questions now, Claidi.’

  But somehow, we waited a while for the questions.

  They are so arrogant, the people of the Towers. Wolf, Tiger, Vulture, Pig, Raven. The Houses too, with their names like Sea-View and Holly Trees.

  The women are the worst, the ones I’ve met. The Old Ladies, like Ironel and Jizania. And the princess-ladies like Twilight Star, who I’m so glad isn’t my mum.

  But it’s science-magic and power that makes them so deadly.

  Am I now going to turn into someone like that?

  I must watch myself, every inch of the way. But he’s there too. Argul. To anchor me to the earth. To give me wings of the heart.

  The answers to the other questions? I’m going to write them out. Hope I don’t miss anything. You’ve been very patient.

  I thought it was best to write about them first.

  Argul, who told me all this, knows everything he does because Ironel told him everything she knew. Which was quite a lot. But I’ll come to that in a minute.

  Ustareth-Zeera made two or three rings, all with great powers. Later she was able to put these powers, or some of them, into other sorts of jewellery as well – necklaces, pendants, and so on.

  Her main reason was selfish. She liked to experiment – I think we all know that by now. But she was also a genius.

  She left her topaz ring at the Rise for two reasons. 1) For Venn, if he could be bothered to look for it, but 2) because it had more or less stopped working. It was an early model. And its power ran out – rather the way a candle will burn down.

  Meanwhile she’d made the diamond ring, and this she took with her. Among all the other things it could do, the diamond had – as we’ve seen – the power to give its wearer flight – by which I mean they can defy gravity, travelling at any preferred height and speed.

  That was how she got through the jungle, got across the sea. Under those circumstances she hadn’t needed her Star-ship. So she left that for Venn too – again, if he had the brains and spirit – or rashness – to search it out.

  Maybe even then she did hope he’d follow her one day. Maybe she was sorry to leave him, only two years old, there in the Rise, with just an Ustareth look-alike doll to be his unloving mother. Until it too broke down.

  When Ustareth got with the Hulta and became Zeera, she wanted to be sure her diamond ring was safe from anyone else. So she had it re-set in Hulta gold. That lessened its powers, or fully shut them off from anyone but her. Which was why, when she died, no one ever thought the diamond was anything more than a beautiful ring. And when Argul gave it to me and I wore it all the time, nothing weird at all happened. (Or if it did, I didn’t connect it up.)