Wolf Star Rise: The Claidi Journals Book 2 Read online

  WOLF STAR RISE

  Tanith Lee

  www.sfgateway.com

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Gateway Introduction

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Moves So Far From Vol 1 Law of the Wolf Tower

  This Book, Again …

  The Un-Wedding Day

  Balloon Ride

  Yet More Travel Opportunities

  Here

  There

  Where?

  In the Air-Harp Gardens

  Vrabburrs and Others

  My Enemy

  In the Dark

  The Quest for the Library

  Lost in the Kitchens

  Between the Sun and the Moon

  The Roof

  How We Left There

  Her Forest

  Pearl Flamingo Village

  Her

  The Star

  Website

  Also by Tanith Lee

  About the Author

  Copyright

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When I wrote the last page of Law of the Wolf Tower, I found I still kept trying to add more to it – even though I knew I’d finished. So I began to suspect another book was forming in the back room of my mind.

  Sure enough Claidi had much more to tell me. She started to fill my thoughts with journeys and jungles, waterfalls, cross-bred rabbit-tigers – and another deep mystery. Well, I wasn’t going to argue …

  It runs like clockwork.

  Traditional

  MOVES SO FAR

  from Vol 1 Law of the Wolf Tower

  1) Claidi steals a book to write about her unpleasant days in the luxurious House and Garden. Life here is lived by inflexible rules, for breaking one of which her parents were cast into the Waste. At sixteen, Claidi is herself the maid-servant of Jade Leaf, whose hobbies seem to be bad poetry and beating her maids.

  2) A hot-air balloon is shot down by the House Guards. Out of it they drag handsome Prince Nemian.

  3) The important Old Lady, Jizania Tiger, informs Claidi that Claidi is herself a princess. Her mother (Twilight Star) was exiled for falling in love with her steward, Claidi’s father. Jizania suggests Claidi should rescue Nemian, and go with him to his powerful city. Though uncertain, Claidi takes the chance.

  4) The House exaggerated about the Waste. Even so there are dust storms, poisoned water, and treacherous Sheepers who cheerfully barter Claidi as a sacrifice. Claidi also begins to see Nemian is unfair, useless, and keen on any girl but herself.

  5) Rescued by the Hulta, a wild yet honourable travelling people, Claidi learns to ride, ignores Nemian, and tries not to become fascinated by the Hulta’s young Leader, Argul. (But Argul was left a chemical gadget by his dead scientist mother, which has shown him Claidi is the woman for him.)

  6) After negotiating a vegetable forest complete with monster, they reach the city of Peshamba among meadows of flowers. Here are technical surprises, including life-size mechanical dolls handy with swords.

  7) Just before Claidi and Argul can admit what they feel for each other, Nemian suddenly begs Claidi not to desert him. Seeing his panic is real, she miserably agrees to go on with him to his city.

  8) Nemian and Claidi reach the bleak stone City, and his home, the Wolf Tower – where she discovers he is happily married. It is the Tower which wants her, to replace Nemian’s cruel grandmother, the Old Lady, Ironel, as giver of the Wolf Tower Law.

  9) The Law is appalling. Read by means of giant dice and ancient, unfathomable books, it forces selected citizens to carry out mindless and often horrifying tasks. Failure to obey is mercilessly punished. (Now Claidi learns why Nemian had been afraid to lose her. It was the Law which said he must bring her back.) Claidi apparently gives in, and becomes Law-giver – the Wolf’s Paw.

  10) Argul however has followed her, intent on rescue. Rather than obey the rules Claidi destroys the Law from within, before she and he escape the city for the free world beyond.

  THIS BOOK, AGAIN …

  Are you still there?

  No, of course you’re not. How could you be? You were never there in the first place. I made you up, selfishly, to help me feel less alone. Someone to confide in, the most trustworthy friend I ever had.

  Of course, then, too, there was a chance someone might read it, this book. But surely, no one ever will, here. Or if they do, what I write will be some sort of weird curiosity, something to sneer at, amazedly. So it would be best to destroy this book, wouldn’t it, instead of picking it up to write in again … after I thought I’d never write in it again—

  Only I remember, when I left the Tower in the City, I took these extra ink pencils and pens. As if I knew I’d go on writing. But that was a reflex.

  Naturally, once Argul and I (and Mehmed and Ro) got back with the Hulta, and we’d moved far enough away from the City, and there was some time – then I did write up the last bit. I remember it was a sunny afternoon on a hill, and Argul and some others had gone hunting, so I stayed where I was, and finished the story.

  I explained about how I destroyed the name-cards and the volumes of numbers, and all that evil stupid junk that made up the Law in the Wolf Tower. Burnt them. And burnt my message in the wall: NO MORE LAW. And about how Argul got me away, and then we saw the City let off all those fantastic fireworks, celebrating its freedom. And I thought after that there’d be nothing much to write, because though I could cover page after page saying Argul, Argul, Argul, how wonderful he is, how happy I am – I could live that, didn’t need to write it.

  I did think I might put down an account of our wedding day, so I could look at it years later, my dress, Argul’s clothes, our vows, what we ate, what everyone said, and the games and dances – that kind of thing. A keepsake.

  Well, I can’t even do that, can I. The marriage never happened. And Argul—

  I suppose, if you did exist, and were still patiently reading, you’d prefer me to tell you all this in the right order.

  But … maybe I won’t do it just yet …

  THE UN-WEDDING DAY

/>   That morning the weather was beautiful. Teil said it would be, the night before, because of the sunset.

  ‘Red sky at set,

  Sheepers not wet.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Oh, Claidi. Don’t you know that old rhyme?’

  ‘I only know about the Sheepers being very dodgy. And anyway, their language is all baa-baa-baa!’

  ‘Well, yes. But it’s an ancient translated saying of theirs. A red sunset means it won’t rain tomorrow. Which is perfect for your wedding day.’

  Then Dagger strode into the tent. She’d just turned eight years old two days before, and looked fiercely motherly.

  ‘Claidi – I want you to have this.’

  ‘Oh – but Dagger – it’s your dagger.’

  ‘Yes. You can peel oranges with it really well, too.’

  I put it in pride of place with the other things – I wish I’d kept it by me. I don’t expect it would have made much difference.

  People had been bringing me gifts for the past six days. It’s the Hulta custom, so the bride can build up her store of useful things for her wagon. But really Argul’s wagon had tons of everything, pots, plates, knives, clothes (some of which had been his late mother’s, when she was young, and fitted me). There were even books, I mean printed ones.

  Still, the gifts touched me. I felt shy. I was an outsider, but no one ever made me feel that. Once Argul wanted me, and they’d seen a bit of who I was, they made me part of the Hulta family.

  Wonderful to be liked. As opposed to having some special horrible power over people, as in the City, when I’d been Wolf’s Paw, that short, foul while.

  Anyway, Argul arrived then, and we went to supper at the camp’s central fire.

  I remember – won’t ever forget – the firelight glowing on faces, the last scarlet at the sky’s edge, jokes, stars, eyes gleaming in bushes and Ro wanting to throw a stone because they were ‘leopards’, only they weren’t, they were fireflies—

  And alone with Argul, and how he said, ‘Are you happy? You look happy, Claidi. Cleverly disguising your misery, no doubt.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been just crying my eyes out at the thought of marrying you.’

  ‘Mmn. Me too.’

  ‘Shall we call it off?’

  ‘Can’t disappoint the rest of them,’ he gloomily said.

  We held our faces in grim expressions. I burst out laughing first.

  ‘I never thought I’d keep you,’ he said. ‘You’re such a maddening, mad little bird.’

  ‘Mad, I’ll accept. Maddening. I’m not so little.’

  ‘I could put you in a nutshell and carry you about in one hand,’ he said, ‘oh Claidi-baa-baa!’

  I remember my wedding dress. Well, I suppose I can say about that. After all, like Argul’s ring, it’s even here with me. I came away in it.

  It’s white, with embroidered patterns of green leaves. White for luck and green for spring, the Hulta bride’s wedding colours. And Argul was to wear sun-yellow, for summer, the groom’s colours. (Spring and summer were seasons. We don’t really have them now.)

  With his tea-colour skin and black hair, he would have looked incredibly splendid.

  Only I never saw that.

  No.

  Anyway, the night was cool and still, and in the morning the sun came up and the sky was golden clear, and it was warm, as Teil had promised.

  We’d been travelling about fifty, sixty days, since leaving Nemian’s City.

  First there’d been the flat grey plain by the River, and the thin mountains in the distance. Then we’d crossed the River, which was probably only river by then, by an old bridge I hadn’t noticed when Nemian and I came down that way – or else it was higher up, beyond the marsh. (I didn’t notice quite a bit of the journey.) Next we turned more south, and then our wagons were in another of those desert areas, which went on and on (only this time, with Argul, I didn’t care).

  The weather gradually got nicer, though. Lots of sunny days. Then there were grasslands, not as pretty or lush as at Peshamba, but still lovely. There were stretches of woods and orchards in blossom, and streamlets gloogling merrily by, and deer feeding and other dapply things with long necks, whose names I can’t recall. We held races. (Siree, my black mare, went so fast I actually won twice.)

  There were villages too, made of painted wood, with grass-thatched roofs. Smiling people came out waving, and we bartered with them. And once there was a big stone circle on a hill, where no one could go in, only stand outside and look, because a wind god lived there, they said.

  Then the land just sort of flowed, with the breezy grass running round islands of hills and trees, in sunlight. Argul said we were now only twenty miles from the sea, and I’d never seen a sea. We’d go there, said Argul. But first we’d have our wedding, and use the grassy plain as our dancing-floor, because the Hulta marriage dances stir up flowers, and make trees grow – or so the Hulta boastfully say.

  Oh.

  You may as well know, a tear nearly thumped on the page. Damn.

  (I never used to swear. I wouldn’t, because the nasty royalty in the House, where I was a slave-maid, were always swearing, and I didn’t want to be like them.)

  Anyway if I’m going to cry and swear I’ll stop writing. So that’s that.

  (I think I do have to write this down. I don’t know why. Like a spell or something. But I’m not so daft that I think it will help in any way.)

  On the wedding morning it’s thought bad luck if a Hulta groom and bride see each other. But – well, we did. But we only laughed and separated quickly for custom’s sake. Didn’t even really kiss each other good-bye – had no reason to, of course. (Every reason to, if we’d known.)

  I went first to groom Siree. Ashti and I plaited Siree’s mane and tail with green and silver ribbons. I’d ride her to my wedding. A Hulta bride always rides.

  After that I had to be groomed.

  There was this terrific private pool Dagger had found in the woods, and Teil and Toy and Dagger and Ashti and I went there to bathe and wash our hair. We took our wedding clothes, and the jewels and makeup and everything, plus some hot bread and fruit juice and sweets. I’d brought this book, too, and an ink pencil, to jot stuff down – although I didn’t really think I’d have time.

  The trees grew in close around the pool, but above there was a scoop of cloudless sky. Flower-bells in the water.

  Brides are supposed to be nervous. I wasn’t, just happy. But our game was that I was really upset and scared, and somehow we got into a story, splashing around in the pool, about how Argul was a dreadful bully about sixty years old, who’d unhitch the horses and make me pull the wagon, with his other six wives.

  In the middle of this, I looked up, and saw it go over. Then the other two.

  I just stood there in the water, and I went – not cold, kind of stony.

  ‘She’s just properly realized it’s that hideous hundred-year-old Argul she’s got to marry!’ screamed Ashti.

  They all yowled and splashed me.

  ‘No – I saw—’

  ‘She’s so frightened, now she’s seeing things!’

  Dagger said, ‘Shut up – what was it, Claidi?’

  But they’d gone.

  ‘I must have – imagined – I don’t know.’

  Teil looked stern. ‘You do. What?’

  ‘Balloons.’

  They went blank. Then realization dawned.

  ‘You mean like from the grey City—’

  ‘Well – not really. I mean I only ever saw one from there, and these weren’t the same.’

  That was true. Nemian’s balloon had been silvery, round. These were more sort of mushroom shaped, a dull coppery colour.

  Had I imagined it? Had they been some odd, big, new kind of insect that looked larger but farther up?

  In any case, many places had fleets of hot air balloons, Nemian had always been going on about that. Peshamba had had them … or hadn’t they?

  Though the sky was st
ill cloud-clear, a sort of shadow had fallen. We got out, not really dry, shoved on our best clothes. Even my wedding dress got put on fast, without much care. (Without thinking I thrust this book in my pocket.) Shaking out our wet hair, we went up through the trees, leaving most of our picnic, and everything else.

  The main camp wasn’t much more than a quarter of a mile away. Not that far. (Only, down a slope, through all the trees.) It hadn’t seemed to matter earlier.

  Argul knew all about what had happened in the Wolf Tower and the City, and what I’d done. Mehmed and Ro had some idea, but weren’t really that bothered. I’d never discussed it with anyone else, nor had they pestered to know. They seemed to accept it was something I’d prefer to forget.

  Only now Teil said, quietly, ‘Claidi, is it possible they might have sent someone after you?’

  ‘Me?’ But it was no good being modest. I’d wrecked the Wolf Tower Law. The fireworks had seemed to prove most of the City was glad about that. But I’d had some doubts. The Old Lady, for one, Ironel, what about her? I’d never been sure, there. ‘It’s – possible.’

  We began to walk quickly, not running, in the direction we’d come, back towards the camp.

  And then, the strangest sound, behind us.

  I thought afterwards it was only startled birds, lots of them, flying up and away. Then, it sounded as if the wood had sprouted wings and was trying to escape. The light and shade were all disturbed, with fluttering and flickering, and then there was a thud behind us.

  Something had come down – landed.

  None of us said anything or yelled. We all just broke into a run.

  Instantly every single tree-root and bush and creeper in the wood seemed to come jumping up to trip and sprawl us.

  But over the chorus of panting and crashes and yelps, and Dagger’s always impressive bagful of rude words – another thud. This one was quite close.

  The light had altered. Something was blotting it up … A brownish reddishness, and on the ground a huge shadow, cruising – and I looked up, having tripped again, and a balloon hung there, right over the trees.