Wolf Star Rise: The Claidi Journals Book 2, Tanith Lee [desktop ebook reader .txt] 📗

So is that why I trust you? Is that all it can ever mean? So long as one never meets another, one is safe?

This isn’t getting me anywhere. Except over the page. My ‘Journal’ – how many pages are left? Just checked. I’ve filled over three quarters of this book!!!

As I drank my tea, enjoying every gulp, sitting on a marble bench, Venn came up to me.

He stopped before me and bowed low, sweepingly. It made me laugh, and then he smiled, as I’ve only really seen him do with the others until now.

It’s a nice smile. The long mouth and white teeth, and one lower one with a tiny chip off the top. How did that happen?

‘Claidi, I apologize for my temper and moodiness. Can you forgive me?’ (Just like Nemian.) (But then, not at all like Nemian, that practised girl-dazzler:) ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, you’re the first woman I’ve ever met, apart from my mother, and Treacle.’

I didn’t reply. What could I say that wouldn’t cause a problem?

He sat down, quite a way along the bench, gazing, not at me, of course, but up at stacks and stacks of books. There are three galleries, one above another, mounting to the sky-light.

‘Claidi. I’d like to try an experiment. I don’t want to explain, because that might somehow affect what happens. Would you just do what I ask?’

‘You want me to jump out of a window?’ I inquired blandly. It was a sort of joke, but he swung round on me.

‘Oh – you’re joking. I’m sorry. No, no windows. You’re not wearing my mother’s ring?’

‘You can see. It’s too big for me, even on my thumb. It’s in the bag still.’

‘Then, when you’re ready, would you stand out on the floor and ask for a book. The same voice, I think, in which you gave us the order for tea.’

Puzzled, I said, ‘Which book?’

‘Anything. Something you’d like to read. Something about the City Towers, I suppose.’

I shrugged. I finished my drink and put down the cup. I walked out on to the tiles.

Clearly I announced, ‘I’d like a book about the Wolf Tower.’ The very last thing I’d want in the world, frankly. A pity, that, because presently I got it.

Standing there, I felt the vastness of the library, its height, the shafts of dusty sun. All those books straight-backed like bricks. Others just in paper form, or scrolls rolled on two bits of wood, or tablets of wood carved with letters—

Then I heard a ticking begin, all along the shelves. It sounded like dozens of clocks starting up.

I thought of the ghost mice who ate the books, eating more knowledge than he or I could ever manage to read.

Then there was a louder click. All the other ticking stopped. And then, down through the air, came drifting, light as a cobweb, this silver thing like a sort of ball of hair. It was all tendrils, and wrapped up in them – a large book in black covers. It was bringing the book from the highest gallery.

The hair-ball laid the book at my feet, detached itself and swam weightlessly off.

Venn picked up the book. He showed me the cover, on which, in dull gold letters and my own, the City’s, language, these words: The Towers.

He put the book on a nearby table.

Then he just stood there.

Then he came over to me and he grabbed up my left hand.

‘It’s you – it’s this.’

‘What? Let go of me!’

‘Claidi – your ring.’

‘I’m not wearing it – oh, this one. But this one is a Hulta ring—’

‘I know. Claidi, I’m sorry, but remember I read your journal.’ (As if I could forget.) ‘I know about your ring. Argul gave it you. You told Ironel in the Wolf Tower that it had been your mother’s—’ Venn hesitated. He said, ‘I know you think Ironel wrote to me. She didn’t. I’ve heard of her. That’s all. It was Grem who asked you about your own ring. You don’t know why. It was because of the dolls in the other house, back across the ravines.’

Totally perplexed, I said, ‘Dolly and Whirr and Bow?’

‘That’s what you called them. You see, they didn’t speak, couldn’t any more. But when you were there, they started speaking. Even poor old Whirr was trying – that’s why he whirred.’

‘I see,’ I said. Didn’t.

‘There were other things. On the bridge – do you recall when you looked over and down?’

‘I’ll never forget.’

‘The bridge tried to move. It steadied, but for a moment, Grem said he thought you’d both be shaken into the ravine.’

I’d thought that feeling of dizziness was just me.

‘The rooms move more, now you’re here,’ said Venn. ‘They always have, but it’s worse. The Rose Room, for example, hadn’t shifted for about three years. But when you were in it – suddenly it was off, if not very far. As for the first apartment you were in – those yellow rooms – I don’t think they’d ever moved, or hardly.’

I stood there in my old familiar enchanting pose, my mouth hanging open.

‘But, Venn—’

‘Then there was the vrabburr – the clockwork one. Claidi, it would probably still have killed you – but it got switched off. I thought then it might be the storm affecting it. But now I think it’s your diamond. Yes, I’m damn sure it is.’

‘How?’

‘Your journal says Argul told you his mother was a scientist. The Hulta called her a magician. The –’ he faltered, had the grace to look uneasy, ‘the glass thing she gave him that told him how important you were …’

I said firmly, before I could even think, ‘Argul’s mother had nothing to do with the Towers. He never said that much about her, but from what he did, she was great. Wise and kind and funny. He loved her. She died when he was a child.’

‘I know. She had to leave him because she died. As opposed to leaving him as a child because she got bored