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

man a ringing smack across his face. He cowered. What she was hissing at him I couldn’t understand, thank goodness.

Ro and Mehmed laughed.

The music started once more, and the crowd was closing over like a repaired split seam. And the dance began again, again taking me by surprise.

It was apparently time to change partners as well.

The magnificent man in red grasped my hands, and whirled me away down the avenue of dancers, before I had time to wonder if now I’d really forgotten the steps.

CHANGING PARTNERS

‘I didn’t cause it.’

‘I’d take a bet you did. You’re trouble, girl.’

We paused to swing around hand in hand.

The lines of men and women clapped in time to the music.

He was smiling.

Argul.

I’d never seen him look so sensational. His hair was like black Peshamban silk. The colour red suited him. All that gold—

And now he took me by the waist and lifted me high in the dance – steps I truly didn’t know – I couldn’t do a thing, just stare down at his smiling, marvellous face. His teeth, in that tawny face, are so white—

He looks happy tonight. He looks alive.

I couldn’t help laughing. I put my head back and laughed at the spinning starry sky.

When he set me on my feet, he steadied me, helped me get my balance again, but all the time we were still dancing …

The dance had changed in fact.

It was a Peshamban dance the girls had shown me. You move quite slowly, holding hands, taking easy, simple steps. Looking into each other’s faces.

This was the dance I’d been afraid no one would want to choose me for.

‘I don’t mean to be trouble,’ I said.

‘Oh Claidi,’ he said, ‘you can’t help it. Don’t try. It’s what a bird like you’s good at.’ I frowned. But I didn’t care. Although he was insulting me, they didn’t feel like insults. He said, ‘Don’t change. You’re wonderful.’

The music of the dance had a song. It was something about the moon in a cloud. And getting lost in the cloud of the moon.

Sky so dark now, and the stars behind his head. The lamps, and the little mechanical birds flying.

Everyone enjoying themselves, yet far away. The mood of the night like rosy curtains in the background.

I thought, I Know this person. I know him as well as I know myself. But I didn’t know him. I don’t know myself.

We danced every dance.

Sometimes there were dances where we were separated. But we always met up again. Then he caught hold of me strongly. I felt I couldn’t go wrong then.

I’ve never felt like that before.

Maybe I never will again.

At midnight, and midnight came so quickly, the CLOCK does something magical.

Not much warning. The band stopped playing. And everyone in the square, following the lead of the local Peshambans, raised their heads to look at the CLOCK.

Suddenly there was a strange noise, like a gigantic key turning in a lock. And then tinkly music began to drift down from the tall white tower.

The three figures on the CLOCK started to move.

The girl twirled, dancing as I had. The man bowed, and stretched out his hand to stroke the horse with the crystal horn, which, at that moment opened its wings.

And then they glided away behind the CLOCK, and other figures emerged from the other side. There was an old man leaning on a stick, and an Old Lady in a high headdress, and a monstrous beast. It had the body of a lion and a tail like three snakes knotted together, and the head of a bird.

The old man regally raised his stick, in greeting, and the Old Lady raised her slender hands. And the beast opened its mouth and fire came out, cascades of yellow sparks.

In the crowd below lots of people cried out in surprise. But the Peshambans only sighed with joy, looking up with loving eyes at the CLOCK which was their god.

I whispered to Argul, ‘It’s amazing. But do they really worship it?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Because they say it’s beautiful, and God is beautiful.’

Somehow this wasn’t, at that moment, confusing.

‘I see,’ I said. I thought I did.

‘And,’ said Argul, ‘they say this, the clock needs only a little attention to keep it working, and that’s all religion needs too.’

‘Religion …’

‘Their worship of it, belief in it. Only a little work to keep perfection perfect.’

The music faded, and the three new figures became still. They’re the figures that face the city from midnight to sunrise. Then they change again, but silently.

When the CLOCK had finished its display, and the Peshambans who were praying had stopped (prayer isn’t only for rage or dismay. It seems to be just happiness, sometimes) Argul brought me a goblet of green wine.

Suddenly I could see why I’d thought him, that first time, so terrible, terrifying – he’s so strong, so powerful. So there.

After that we walked up through the city, beyond the square and the CLOCK. I don’t think we discussed why.

The streets were hung with trees, and cool, and smelled of flowers and scented dust and darkness.

There was another park. Peach-tinted lamps drooped from boughs.

We sat on a marble bench shaped like a bush under a large bush that had been cut and combed into the shape of a chair.

‘Oh, look,’ I said, ‘another mechanical doll!’

It was a fantastic bird, gleaming blue in the park lamplight. It had all at once lifted its drifting tail and opened it like a fan of green and turquoise, purple and gold—

‘No, Claidi. It’s a peacock.’

‘It’s real?’

‘Yes. As real as you.’

‘I don’t feel real tonight. I never knew cities existed any more.’

‘When I was a child,’ he said, ‘my mother told me about Peshamba.’

‘Did she?’

‘There’s something written on the face of the clock. You can only see it from the top of the tower. It says: There’s time enough for everything.’

‘Is there?’

‘I hope so,’ he said.

Testingly, I said, ‘I haven’t met your mother, have I?’

‘No. She died eight years ago, when I was ten.’

I felt tremendously sorry.