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

should have some way of telling if the person they were attracted to was really right for them.

Of course, I thought at once of Zeera’s glass charm she gave to Argul. The thing he’d looked at when he met me. The way he could be sure we were right, that he truly did want me. (Had Venn thought of that too?)

Strange.

Venn sighed and said, ‘She wasn’t so bad, you know. I’m not fair to her.’

‘Well, she left you.’

‘She wasn’t so bad. At least, not to other people. She helped the local people, Otherlanders, she called them. If they got ill, or their crops failed. They’d bring people to the Rise with a broken arm … She’d make them well. Or – she did that until she changed. After that, she wouldn’t see them. She’d hardly see me. She preferred her mechanical dolls.’

(I heard Argul saying to me, ‘… My mother told me about Peshamba.’ Peshamba, the city with mechanical dolls.

And, ‘She knew such a lot. Herbs and chemicals.’)

I said, ‘Venn—’

‘Yes, I know. She was a terrible person.’

‘I was going to say, in some ways she sounds – like Argul’s mother.’

‘I know. I caught that when I read – your journal. What you wrote that he said about her. And about Peshamba, too. My mother could almost have invented and made Peshamba.’

‘But it’s coincidence. Zeera was Hulta. And anyway she was there with them, long before Ustareth left the Rise. Argul’s eighteen, two years younger than you—’

‘No, three,’ Venn corrected me. (Hadn’t realized Venn was as old as that—)

‘Three, then. But that would make you three when Argul was born – and she didn’t leave here until you were nine. Is it possible somehow, later, she and Zeera could have met?’

‘If they had, Ustareth would have thought Argul’s mother was a barbarian.’

‘And Argul’s mother would have thought Ustareth was a tronker!’ I flared.

End of discussion.

Although Venn hates her himself, he doesn’t like anyone else to insult Ustareth.

It’s quite difficult trying to see to write by dying firelight.

Actually, last night (after the deer or whatever leaped over us), I asked Venn about the two men who abducted me, Hrald and Yazkool. It was to make conversation, really.

Venn said he didn’t know them. So I asked what Grem had thought. Venn then said Grem hadn’t seen them, they’d been gone when he crossed to the house.

Something in that seemed weird, and I thought back to that morning. Bellowing monkeys, smashed plates on the terrace and upturned chair, a breakfast started and left. How I’d thought H and Y had been thrown into the gulf. ‘They left in a hurry then. I thought you paid them?’

‘Oh, I’d sent a courtesy payment, with Grem. He didn’t see them so he just brought it back.’

‘Why did they rush off?’

It seemed he wasn’t going to answer. He didn’t, then.

Then, somewhere in the dark I heard him say, ‘Those two ruffians. It’s possible something carried them off. It occurred to me when I saw what you wrote about it.’

I’d been drifting to sleep. This woke me up and no mistake.

‘I don’t know if I should tell you,’ he said, ‘I know you’ll get anxious.’

‘And my life otherwise is such a serene sea of calm.’

‘Claidi, you deserve to be told. Yes, something may have taken them. They were on the roof-terrace. Something like this happened once before.’

‘When? Who?’ I gabbled.

‘A servant of my mother’s. He was old, and very gentle. Heepo. He used to talk to me a lot after she stopped talking, find me things to do that I liked.’

‘And—?’

‘Well, Claidi, when I was about seven, Heepo was out on a high balcony of the room where I was playing. It was noon. A sort of shadow flicked over the light. I didn’t bother for a moment, and then I looked up. Nothing was there. And nor was Heepo. I thought he’d gone out of the room, not telling me, which wouldn’t have been like him. I looked for him, couldn’t find him. Then Grem looked too, and Treacle. I even got my courage together and went and disturbed Ustareth. She didn’t say much. Just, Yes, never mind, or something, as if I’d lost a toy. But we never saw Heepo again.’

‘You’re saying something swooped down and took him off the balcony – without even a cry—’

‘Without anything. Just that flick of shadow, which I didn’t look at. It was too fast, you see. It was just there – then gone. He didn’t have time to call. And neither did those two – Hrald and Yaz-the-fool. But the monkeys must have seen something and it scared them badly.’

‘What was it?’

‘All our talks circle round Ustareth. She bred a lot of birds here. Perhaps some very large bird, very fast, predatory.’

So, one more delightful menace to look out for.

I’m so pleased I never knew this at the Rise. All those high places I sat in the sun, those landings on the great outside staircase – the roof of the library!

The path stopped this afternoon.

We were far down the cliff, jungle looming above and falling away in front, never able to see far. Mist of blue distance through leaves.

When it went, we searched for a while. But this time the path hadn’t been covered by vines or broken up by bushes. It wasn’t there any more. No more path.

‘She used to bring me this way,’ he said, angrily. ‘And the path went on much further. Right to the base of the cliff and then there was a deer-path—’

He was irrationally furious – with rational good reason. I sat under a tree while he raved.

Then he growled at me, ‘Come on then.’

Whenever things don’t go right, I get this impression all this is my fault. The journey we’re having to make, I mean. But really, I never wanted to do this. I’d have gone the other way, if I’d made the choice. The way I was brought here. Used the road, tried to find a place on the coast