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

Claidi, if I asked you to stay here, with me, you wouldn’t want to, would you?’

A long silence.

The fireflies had gone. Down in the jungles mother made, monkeys abruptly began hooting, as they do now and then at night, scaring you witless.

Then again, the long silence.

‘I didn’t think,’ I said, ‘I had a choice.’

‘I’ve shown you you may have. She didn’t want to be here. They made her. She left. You’re the same.’

‘Then you—’

‘Oh, I won’t go with you. To the Star, yes. The country down there is full of tigapards, and all the rest of it: her bred animals; the real vrabburrs – you’ll need me to help you reach the Star. No one else. I wouldn’t risk Jotto or Treacle in that mess. I shan’t ask Grem.’

‘You’re saying you’ll see me to the ship – if it is.’

‘And then I’ll come back here.’

I looked at him under my lids. He was staring up at the sky above, from which the star had by now moved away.

‘You said you might all leave.’

‘We might. But not with you. We – I – don’t belong in Claidi’s world. Though … you could have been welcome in mine.’

A rush almost like tears closed my throat so I couldn’t or didn’t speak.

I thought, This is crazy. If we do this, we’ll be eaten alive by vrabburrs, or something else his awful mother made or bred. Or we won’t find the Star at all. Or we won’t be able to get into it.

We’ll end up back here, both of us.

So it’s unwise to start dreaming myself back with Argul. Or being afraid of this good-bye. Afraid of something I don’t understand and can’t recognize.

I couldn’t stay with Venn. Not if I have the choice. Argul is the one. He always will be the one.

And yet—

‘There’s a firefly in your hair,’ Venn said in a hushed voice.

I became aware of the green-gold spark only in the instant it zig-zagged away.

When I looked up, he said, in the cold arrogant voice, ‘And the rings might work against any dangers. Hers or yours. So let’s stop chattering and get some sleep.’

It’s so sudden, happening so fast. Too fast.

They’ve waved us off. They did wave. Jotto had his favourite chicken under one arm for comfort, a smart chicken with white stripes.

I feel as if I’ve lived here a long time. Not a month or so – many years.

All such a hurry.

I wish it hadn’t been. I wanted to go on that walk again, that long one with the trees with blue flowers, and that pool with the big fish, and the hydrangeas … I liked that game Jotto taught me – did I ever say – with the little painted squares. And Treacle watering the pots of flowers from her eyes, which, saying farewell, were dry, though she looked sad and stern. Perhaps, if she really does ever cry, her real tears have to be made of nothing—

She’s frightened for him.

I’ve never asked where they’re from, Treacle and Grem. The children of Ustareth’s slaves – or of free people from the land about, which was then a waste. How did she make them have leaf-hair, watering-can eyes? How? (And how could she?)

Grem kept flatly saying he’d come with us. Was refused. And Jotto offered, very bravely, because you could see he was appalled at the thought of the jungles.

I liked living in the pavilion. I did. And the statue of the porcupine I found in the back-room. Jotto and I had planned to move it out under that big tree. He says he will, anyway.

I’ll never see it there.

I’ll never see any of it again.

The gardens are beautiful. They looked wonderful in the dawn as we came down off the stairs and then the terraces, into them. Mists of trees floating in fogs of light—

Seven cats washing each other in the shade.

The Gardener cleaning out a bird-bath, turning his back on us. He certainly doesn’t care if any of us stays or goes.

Those little animals, the tiny ones, hippos and rabbits, pouces and geese and tigapards. We could have had a last dinner, played with them. Or just gone and seen them in their enclosure.

And the waterfall, it was so splendid—

I’d have liked to go and look at it at the other end of the Rise. The sound I’ve got so used to that I don’t hear it. It’s going to be odd, really not-hearing it.

And the rat-beasts in the kitchens, poor old things.

And just being able to reach up and pick a ripe peach or orange, whenever I wanted.

And all the coloured windows glowing from the cliff in the dusk after the swift sunsets.

And the infuriatingly blinding light of the Star.

The Star.

Stop it, Claidi. Just stop.

I’m just nervous about going into the jungles again. Especially now I know about them. And what’s in them.

No, that’s not it.

We’d packed. I didn’t have much, and offered to carry more, but also got refused. (No one can refuse like Venn!)

Treacle brought me some different clothes to wear, smooth silky trousers and a tunic, high boots because of snakes (which until now I’ve only admired and not bothered about).

He has a rifle. And bullets.

He took her ring, too, the topaz. Put it on (it fits him, perhaps she made it for him, anyway). Then he looked uncomfortable, kept pushing it and turning it as if he wanted to drag it off.

Jotto brought us food in little waxed paper boxes, and water-bottles. I did take some of those.

My bag feels heavy. Like my heart. Oh what a line, worthy of that awful writer Lady Jade Leaf, at the House.

They were on the lawn under the tree with flowers, where the porcupine may go, when they waved.

Grem embraced Venn. Then Jotto embraced him. Then Jotto embraced me. Jotto looked tearful, and like Treacle he can’t actually cry. (She might have thought of that. If she gave him the emotions, she might have made him able to express them.)

Treacle turned one