Law of the Wolf Tower: The Claidi Journals Book 1, Tanith Lee [pocket ebook reader .TXT] 📗

No idea like this at all. Or none I ever heard.)

Beyond the wood there was a grassy plain. It started as dry, burnt-looking grass, but then unrolled into greenness, and then rainbows.

As the sun went down I stood up on a rise, and the distance was emerald, with films of mauve and blue and rose.

‘Wild flowers,’ said the seven-year-old with the knife (she’s called Dagger).

‘Oh,’ I said.

Now what should I think? The House said monsters and deserts and criminals. Spot on. But the House said too that only the House and the Garden had greenness and flowers.

Jizania hadn’t though. But I don’t somehow trust Jizania, now.

‘You’ve been here before?’ I asked Dagger.

‘No. We don’t normally travel in this direction. Best trade is north and east.’

She must mean the best places to rob.

Politely I didn’t say this.

‘You’ve seen lots of wild flowers,’ I said.

‘Seen about everything,’ boasted Dagger.

Could be true for all I know.

That night, grasshoppers sang on the plain.

In the morning the Hulta rambled on. We rode across the green grass with the flowers. They were something, all right. Wild hyacinths, wild roses, drifts of convolvulus and lilies. Wonderful scent. Looking back, the shadow wood just slid away.

Then the city started to be visible ahead.

I didn’t believe my eyes. It was like jewellery.

But as it got nearer and nearer, it got better and better.

The pale walls cascading up were topped with gold. (It isn’t quite. It’s thin gold-leaf, but even so.) Windows glittered like sweets because they had colours in them. And there were domes. White and lucent as lamps with a faint candle inside. And ruby, and turquoise blue, with gold patterns all over.

The bandits were also impressed, but they had heard of Peshamba.

I wondered what Nemian thought. According to the little he’d said, his own city was tremendous, better than anywhere. Could it be better than here?

When you come close, the walls appear higher than five houses, piled one on another, and inside, other higher walls go up.

At the front, like a blue shining apron, is a lake. Peshamba seems to be standing in it, and partly is. The reflection of the city floats in the water, and Peshamba floats above, between water and sky.

‘Is the water drinkable?’ I asked Dagger. She shrugged. She does this when she doesn’t know something, as if to say, ‘If I don’t, it can’t be important.’

Anyway, when we reached the water, half the bandit men flung off their shirts, cloaks, jackets and decorations, and plunged in to swim. The women found a quieter part among some willows.

Was anyone watching from the walls? Did they think an invasion had arrived?

But later, when we went over the stone bridge I forgot to mention stretched across the lake, a gate in the wall stood wide open.

Beyond was a narrow way, paved with marble. And on it stood a giant, half the height of a man again.

He was encased in a uniform made of metal, and in his hand there was a huge axe. His helmet was gold with a white plume. His face was entirely masked in gold.

I’d got up near the front of the Hulta horde, and I could see Argul sitting on his horse, looking in at the giant gravely.

Thinking of books again, I said to Mehmed, ‘Does someone have to fight the giant?’

‘Wouldn’t fancy it much. He’s one big tronker.’

Just then, the giant spoke.

‘Name yourselves.’

The strangest voice. Perhaps the mask made it sound so peculiar.

Argul called out, ‘The Hulta.’

‘Your business.’

‘Travellers,’ said Argul. And lightly, ‘Sightseers.’

The giant lowered his axe.

‘Do no harm in Peshamba, and Peshamba does no harm to you.’

The Hulta consists of a mass of people. We squashed through, wagons and animals, the lot, and the giant stood aside in a kind of alcove in the marble wall.

Ro was there. ‘Wouldn’t fancy taking him on.’

Teil pushed up, carrying one of the little girls astride her horse. (The Hulta children can ride at four or five. Hence Argul’s comment on my great age.)

‘I’ve heard of this,’ said Teil, waving at the giant. ‘It’s clockwork.’

Ro snorted. He went up to the giant. ‘Here, mate. You a doll?’

The gold mask creaked down to Ro. It wasn’t a mask. It was a gold-painted face made of metal, which gave no answer.

Ro backed off.

We went on, and where the narrow way ended, passed through another, wider gate.

Here were two long lines of guards, standing bolt upright. They had axes over their shoulders, wore scarlet, and were covered in braid, epaulets, spurs, spikes, metal plates. They weren’t giants, however. Really not much taller than me.

As we went by, they presented arms, bringing their axe-hafts down on the ground with a bang.

‘Are they crazy here?’ I said.

Teil said, ‘No. If someone attacks, these things go wild. And they can’t be hurt, either, or stopped.’

I asked how she knew. ‘Oh,’ said Teil, ‘word gets around.’

There were several more passages and gates, all with the clockwork doll-guards. Some even had rifles with silver set in the stocks. They certainly were better looking than the House Guards.

Eventually we all muddled into a huge garden – they call it here a park.

Blue cedars and olive-green palms stretched across the sky. Cypress trees carefully shaped to dark, waxed tassels. Fountains. A procession of snow-white ducks idled across a lawn.

Argul was riding down the line.

‘If you don’t know, be careful here.’ He saw Ro peering greedily after the ducks. ‘Watch it, Ro.’ Argul pointed. High on a slim tower as pink as marshmallow, a glass thing was turning slowly round and round, flashing in the sun. ‘They keep an eye on everything. See that? It’s looking at us.’

‘What, that?’

‘That.’

The message went down the line of people and wagons.

Across the park, we could now see wonderfully dressed figures moving about, and girls in glimmering silks playing ball.

Blurn appeared.

‘Watch it, Ro.’

‘All right, all right.’

In the park was a large building with courtyards clustered around and inside it. It was burstingly full. It’s named the Travellers’ Rest.

I saw some new (to me) animals which someone told me