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

Another one stood there, bowing gracefully to me and to Venn.

This man then spoke in another language.

But Venn answered, saying something like, ‘Howa drah b ‘doo’?

Then the graceful man turned to me and said, in my own language (accented but clear), ‘The vrabburrs are not harmed.’

‘Oh good – I’m so thrilled – my main worry—’

‘Shut up, Claidi,’ said Venn. But he was grinning. He spoke some more in the other language.

The rest of them were helping load the vrabburrs on a sort of tray, which they then, eight to a side, lifted. They must be strong.

Venn said, ‘They think all life is important, Claidi. They heard us, he says, and came to save us, but also to save the vrabburrs.’

‘Now what? Are they taking them off to make them into attractive rugs?’

‘Of course not. They like them. They’ll keep them in the village a few days for the children to see, feed the vrabburrs, clean their teeth and check their general health. Then return them to the jungle.’

I gaped. Well, anyone might have been surprised.

‘My mother,’ said Venn, ‘taught them all that. They’re from the village I told you about. So I’ve got you here, at last.’

Their pipes make a sound that – just knocks vrabburrs, tigapards, jaguars – that sort of thing – out. It doesn’t hurt them, though.

I’ve been told, by Shrin, that the air-harps in the Rise gardens have a similar purpose – their sound, when they make it, warns the vrabburrs, and other bigger outside animals, off. They just don’t like it. I remember now, even the larger monkeys would sometimes go all funny when breezes blew through the harps. I’d never linked the two facts up. (Am I just very slow? Well, I had things on my mind.)

Outside, beyond the veranda, is the village. Small houses thatched with leaves. Carved wooden pillars, painted. The lake is the curved shape of a bean, so Shrin said.

I thought it was blossoming trees growing in it, all that silvery pearl pink. But just before sunset, we walked down, and it’s hordes of pearl-pink flamingos, which have given the village its name – Pearl Flamingo Village.

I’ve seen flamingos here and there, but never so many. They say there are two thousand on the lake. Sometimes they suddenly fly up, and there’s a sort of soft lightning in the air, as all their wings turn and catch the sun.

Shrin is the wife of Burand.

Burand and Shrin are the only ones who can completely talk the language I speak. (They learnt it from their parents, who were taught by – her, Ustareth, and her machines.)

Everyone is still very respectful about U.

Why? She was—

Anyway, beyond the lake is a cliff. It’s not nearly as massive as the Rise, but up there is the Star. It’s absolutely true.

This evening, as the sun set, out of the jungle along this little cliff-top, It rose.

From here it looked more than ever huge and overpowering. It caught the last rays of sun, blistering. You can see it has points sticking out of it all over – like the spines that stick out of the green case of a chestnut. Just like a star.

It is a star. Only it isn’t.

The Pearl Flamingans come out, most of them, to see it rise. (Its return in the last hours before dawn tends to act as their general wake-up. You see, here it’s blinding. Sunrise in reverse, and after it’s down, the sun comes up not long after.)

Shrin says they all like the Star, they enjoy it – rather as I recall how the Peshambans liked their Clock, which they worshipped as a god. But the Clock was much more civilized than this Star.

Venn has explained to the village the Star may be going away.

They looked shocked – then resigned.

Burand said they’d always expected this. Ustareth had told them that probably one day it would.

Had she meant to use it herself?

Tonight we had dinner on the veranda with Shrin and Burand and their seven children, and all the household dogs and cats, monkeys, mongooses, lemurs, parrots, lizards and snakes. The noise!

They encourage animals of all types. The animals know it, and take great advantage.

I shared my meal with two cats (not the dome-headed variety) and a tortoise – the oddest creature, with a wrinkled, kind, old face, and in a shell—!

Lemurs swung from pillar to pillar. Tails in everything.

A snake kept coiling round our feet and ankles. They call it Flollu – which means Nosy. It is. (It visited me during the night, stayed a whole hour, taking up most of my bed.)

I have to admit, I love it here.

Venn’s being nice.

I am.

These people are good. I know I make mistakes about people, (the Sheepers and so on). But this village is just – I’m not sure there’s even a word for it. But it’s great. And apparently, from all they say, that is because of Ustareth!

Venn looked stunned, the more they went on about it, what she taught them, how lovely she was. He muttered something about they were trying to please him by lying. But then he muttered no, he didn’t think it was that.

They have the light, the sort the Rise had. It’s from some dam(?) around the far side of the cliff in the lake. They have running hot water.

The knock-out pipes were given them by U, and the collars which they use to keep beasts like vrabburrs happy, while they check them over. (I’ve seen ‘our’ vrabburrs, in a big garden place. They’re free to wander, just in the collars. Children feed them vegetables, and pat them. The vrabburrs look just a bit puzzled. No doubt thinking, all these juicy kids, why aren’t we biting into them?)

There are other things. Foolproof medicines, vast crops that never fail.

They say in return Ustareth left them the job of looking after the jungle-forest. So they do. They like doing it.

They know who Venn is, though he’s never before been here. One old