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

‘Well, yes – but—’

‘Jotto was an earlier model. With this one she got it perfect. Remember it – she – moved about. She spoke. She blinked her eyes, and breathed. And it was all mechanical.’

I shook my head. To clear it mostly, which didn’t work.

He said, ‘And she never let me near her after that. Never touched me. Most of the time I never even saw her – she’d speak only about seven words a month to me – only that wasn’t her – it was this thing. Claidi – this even fooled Jotto—’

‘Venn, if it’s true—’

‘It’s true. Of course it’s true. Her final joke on me. Not only did she leave me but she left me – with this for my mother. I got the idea from the dress, you see,’ he said. ‘It’s a little clever extra thing she did, to show me how to work it out. The pearl dress went with her – yet an identical copy of the dress was still at the Rise. Just like the identical copy of my mother.’

‘Venn – Venn, listen – you said it all happened – that she changed – when you were two—’

‘It did. You’re two, she said, and off she went, and I had this.’

‘Venn, she left you when you were two.’ I was so excited I couldn’t stop the words. It wasn’t the time to say them, but they had to be said, and probably no time would ever be right. ‘Venn, she’s Zeera. She’s Ustareth, and Zeera too. She was your mother, and she was Argul’s mother – you and he – you’re brothers!’

‘What?’

He’d turned towards me, stared at me now as I stared at him. I repeated what I’d said quite slowly.

Then I pieced it together, there in front of him, as we stood in the room on the lake, with that seated doll, whose clockwork had at last run down.

I didn’t say everything I’m putting here, but he knows, of course. It was obvious enough.

She hadn’t wanted her Tower husband, Narsident, and she hadn’t wanted Venn, or she came not to want him. What she wanted was to escape the Rise, and the Law, and be free. So she did everything They’d said she must – grew the jungle, bred the animals. And for herself she made the doll.

I think perhaps she did wait until she thought Venn was all right. He was an extremely bright and clever little kid. She thought, He can cope now. And also she did something to the doll so it would run a lot longer. Seven years.

When it started to run down, it would leave, so Venn wouldn’t see. Possibly she thought the doll would just stop somewhere in the forests, and never be found. Or she made it come to Pearl Flamingo Village so that one day, Venn might come across it, and learn what she did – maybe she felt her lie had to end sometime.

She came here, I’m certain, on her real journey away, when Venn was two. At first I couldn’t think why she hadn’t used the Star, to leave in. But anyway, she did leave. She reached the coast and went back to the land across the sea, the land she’d come from.

And somewhere there, she’d met, that year, the Hulta. She met Argul’s father.

Venn’s father was the man she didn’t want. Argul’s father was the man she chose. All I’d ever heard of Argul’s parents had been how well they liked and loved each other. And if Venn was the son she didn’t care about, Argul was the son she valued.

Venn knows that. I went all around avoiding it in what I said, but it’s a fact. It must be.

She left Venn as soon as she could. Only death took her away from Argul.

Oh Venn—

Oh, Venn.

How I wish I could make it different, or at least lie really well and fool you.

And what do I think of her?

I can only say this. I despise Ustareth, fear and distrust her, yet I feel sorry for her. And Zeera – well, I’ve always loved her. She brought Argul into the world. And Ustareth and Zeera are the same person, but not for me. Not for any of us. Perhaps not even for herself.

It was when he said suddenly, shrugging it all off (which convinces me it’s gone deep as deep inside him), ‘Why didn’t she use the Star to get away?’ that I did think of something else, and say it.

‘To start with, she left it here to go on working the Rise – the rooms, the food and everything. But I think she thought you’d leave the Rise one day. I think – I think she left the Star for you to use – I mean, the window opened for you. So maybe …’ I chanced it, ‘the Star was left for you to follow her.’

‘Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but—’ It was truly difficult for me to say what I said next. I’m not sure why. ‘There’s Argul,’ I said. ‘You’re half-brothers. Oh Venn, you look so alike.’

‘We don’t.’ Haughty.

‘You do. Your colouring is different, yes. Not your eyes, though – and so much else – I kept seeing it, and didn’t know why—’

Venn had said once that Argul was someone he’d wished he’d been like. Now Venn looked down his nose (like Argul), I? I, Prince Venarion Yllar Kaslem-Idoros – resemble a barbarian?

There seemed no point in going on with it.

I cast one last look at – her, and went out.

By one of the other windows I lingered, until Venn followed me, about an hour later.

We went down through the house.

Lights blazed on, blanked out.

‘I hate this kind of light,’ he said. ‘You see too much, but it never looks real.’

The door, which had shut, opened when he spoke to it, and closed again when we were outside.

A moon was rising, shining on the lake, turning the flamingos to snow. We could