Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 (13 page)

We were alive. Shakily I stroked Sirree.

The House had been right again. There are monsters in the Waste. This one, luckily, was a vegetarian.

PESHAMBA

After all that, Peshamba was a relief.

Also a shock.

Peshamba is beautiful.

In fact, getting through the rest of the monster wood, wondering off and on if there’d be any more of the bear-apes, these more hungry and less fussy ones, or worse things than bear-apes (?.‘!) only took the rest of the day.

We came out of the wood before the sun set. This in itself was a relief, and I heard some “prayers” spoken, sort of chants to do with thanks. (I’m still
puzzled
about this God-gods thing. I must ask somebody sensible. There were no gods, prayers, or shrines in the House. No idea like this at all. Or none I ever heard.)

Beyond the wood there was a grassy plain. It started as dry, burnt-looking grass but then unrolled into greenness, and then
rainbows
.

As the sun went down I stood up on a rise, and the distance was emerald with films of mauve and blue and rose.

“Wildflowers,” said the seven-year-old with the knife (she’s
called
Dagger).

“Oh,” I said.

Now what should I think? The House said monsters and deserts and criminals. They were right. But the House said too that only the House and the Garden had greenness and flowers.

Jizania hadn’t, though. But I don’t somehow trust Jizania now.

“You’ve been here before?” I asked Dagger.

“No. We don’t normally travel in this direction. Best trade is north and east.” She must mean the best places to rob.

Politely I didn’t say this.

“You’ve seen lots of wildflowers?” I asked.

“Seen about everything,” boasted Dagger.

Could be true for all I know.

That night, grasshoppers sang on the plain.

In the morning the Hulta rambled on. We rode across the green grass with the flowers. They were something, all right. Wild hyacinths, wild roses, drifts of convolvulus and lilies. Wonderful scent. Looking back, the shadow wood just slid away.

Then the city started to be visible ahead.

I didn’t believe my eyes. It was like jewelry.

 

But as it got nearer and nearer, it got better and better.

The pale walls cascading up were topped with gold. (It isn’t quite. Its thin gold leaf, but even so.) Windows glittered like sweets because they had colors in them. And there were domes: white and lucent as lamps with a faint candle inside. And ruby, and turquoise blue, with gold patterns all over.

The bandits were also impressed, but they had heard of Peshamba.

I wondered what Nemian thought. According to the little he’d said, his own city was tremendous, better than anywhere. Could it be better than here?

When you come close, the walls appear higher than five houses, piled one on another, and inside, other, higher walls go up.

At the front, like a blue shining apron, is a lake. Peshamba seems to be standing in it, and partly is. The reflection of the city floats in the water, and Peshamba floats above, between water and sky.

“Is the water drinkable?” I asked Dagger. She shrugged. She does this when she doesn’t know something, as if to say, “If I don’t, it can’t be important.” Anyway, when we reached the water, half the bandit men flung off their shirts, cloaks, jackets, and decorations, and plunged in to swim. The women found a quieter part among some willows.

Was anyone watching from the walls? Did they think an invasion had arrived?

But later, when we went over the stone bridge that I forgot to mention stretched across the lake, a gate in the wall stood wide open.

Beyond was a narrow way paved with marble. And on it stood a giant, half the height of a man again.

He was encased in a uniform made of metal, and in his hand there was a huge axe. His helmet was gold with a white plume. His face was entirely masked in gold.

I’d moved up near the front of the Hulta horde, and I could see Argul sitting on his horse, gravely looking in at the giant.

Thinking of books again, I said to Mehmed, “Does someone have to fight the giant?”

“Wouldn’t fancy it much. He’s one big tronker.”

Just then, the giant spoke.

“Name yourselves.”

The strangest voice. Perhaps the mask made it sound so peculiar.

Argul called out, “The Hulta.”

“Your business.”

“Travelers,” said Argul. And lightly, “Sightseers.”

The giant lowered his axe.

“Do no harm in Peshamba, and Peshamba does no harm to you.”
The Hulta consists of a mass of people. We squashed through, wagons and animals, the lot, and the giant stood aside in a kind of alcove in the marble wall.

Ro was there. “Wouldn’t fancy taking
him
on.”

Teil pushed up, carrying one of the little girls astride her horse. (The Hulta children can ride at four or five. Hence Arguls comment on my great age.)

“I’ve heard of this,” said Teil, waving at the giant. “Its clockwork.” Ro snorted. He went up to the giant. “Here, mate. You a
doll
?” The gold mask creaked down to Ro. It wasn’t a mask. It was a gold-painted face made of metal, which gave no answer.

Ro backed off.

We went on and, where the narrow way ended, passed through another, wider gate.

Here were two long lines of guards, standing bolt upright. They had axes over their shoulders, wore scarlet, and were covered in braid, epaulets, spurs, spikes, metal plates. They weren’t giants, however.

Really not much taller than I am.

As we went by, they presented arms, bringing their axe-hafts down on the ground with a bang.

“Are they crazy here?” I said.

Teil said, “No. If someone attacks, these things go wild. And they can’t be hurt, either, or stopped.” I asked how she knew. “Oh,” said Teil, “word gets around.” There were several more passages and gates, all with the clockwork doll-guards. Some even had rifles with silver set in the stocks. They certainly were better looking than the House Guards.

Eventually we all muddled into a huge garden—they call it here a
park
.

Blue cedars and olive-green palms stretched across the sky.

Cypress trees carefully shaped to dark, waxed tassels. Fountains. A procession of snow-white ducks idled across a lawn.

Argul was riding down the line.

“If you don’t know, be careful here.” He saw Ro peering greedily after the ducks. “Watch it, Ro.” Argul pointed. High on a slim tower as pink as marshmallow, a glass thing was turning slowly around and around, flashing in the sun. “They keep an eye on everything. See that? Its looking at us.”

“What,
that
?”

“That.”

The message went down the line of people and wagons.

Across the park, we could now see wonderfully dressed figures moving about and girls in glimmering silks playing ball.

 

Blurn appeared.

“Watch it, Ro.”

“All right, all right.”

In the park was a large building with courtyards clustered around and inside it. It was burstingly full. Its named the Travelers’ Rest.

I saw some new (to me) animals that someone told me are “zebras,” not horses. They have black and white stripes that make you dizzy. And there were three teams of “oxen” the color of walnuts.

Tents had been pitched, carts and wagons stood about, courtyards streamed with drying colored washing. There were wells and pools and ornamental fountains, all crowded.

Impossible racket. Sounded to me like a thousand different languages.

Going up some stairs carrying bundles, I saw, over a wall, more of the city lying below. There were the jewelry domes, and there a slim green tower with a golden bell in it, and squares, and roads, and buildings as decorated as cakes, and all pale glowing colors with sun on them. And gardens—everywhere gardens. (There was another of those turning, flashing crystals I could see, as well.)

Over the smells of Hulta and people and animals generally, scents of spice and cooking and tobacco, of vines and flowers, and the smell of
brickwork
in the sun that
I’d
half forgotten.

==========

We girls and women on our own got quite a big room to ourselves. Like all the other women in the Rest, we immediately began washing clothes and under things and sheets, hanging them out of the windows and even from the rafters.

The queue for the bathrooms was long but worth it.

I’d forgotten too the delight of cool-skin-temperature water scented with a few stolen herbs and perfumes. Here you can
buy
them. Or I couldn’t, but Teil did and gave some to me. And soap and other things to keep one smelling nice.

I washed my hair. The last time was in the red rain.
(I’d
gone to groom Sirree, but it had already been done. The Rest has its own grooms, and Argul had
paid
to have all the horses and dogs tended. Even a couple of Hulta pet monkeys were being brushed and scented with banana essence.) At first, the people of the city were hard for me to sort out from all the other people packed in here.

They seem a mixture, like everyone. But their clothes are always the most amazing silky stuff, and fabulous colors. So that’s how I identify Peshambans now. Oh, and sometimes they wear masks—not over the whole face, just the eyes. Its a fashion—to make them more like the dolls this city’s supposed to be full of?

==========

Excitement in the room we share. There’s a festival tonight. (I thought of the Featherers and felt uneasy, but its nothing like that.) Large chests from the wagons had been opened and astonishing garments taken out. Fit to rival Peshamban clothes.

 

One of the girls insisted on giving me—it was a “present” —a deep blue dress sewn with embroidery and silver disks. Everyone clapped when I’d put it on. I felt shy, touched, and also rather resentful. A funny combination, but I think they feel sorry for me about Nemian. (Who, I may add, someone told me has already gone off swanning in the city.)

I did like myself in the dress when I glanced in the mirror.

We made each other up: black around the eyes, and powder, and scented sticks of color for the mouth.

“Pretty Claidibaabaa!” they cried, prancing around me. I really was the center of attention.

Someone else then gave me silver earrings with sapphires in them. Real true sapphires.

“
Hultai chura
!” they squealed.

I concluded that must mean “darling of the Hulta.” (.‘!.’) (But why?) We had lunch in the main hall, where food can be
bought
— pancakes and vegetables. Then later, in the room, they were teaching me steps to wild Hulta dances, gallops and stampings and tossing the head (like a horse).

I haven’t laughed like this for so long. We laughed ourselves daft, I feel a bit guilty now, thinking how Daisy and Pattoo and I found ways to giggle and mess around despite the filthy rules and cruelty of the House.

But the afternoon is turning over to sunfall, and soon it’ll be the time that is my mothers lovely name.

I can’t help it. I want to have fun tonight.

Nemian… well. Grulps, as the ruder Hulta say. Yes,
grulp
s.

Someone will like me, dance with me, hold my hand. I’m not going to worry about if or who. Someone
will
. Its that sort of night.

And I never was a princess. That was a lie. Wasn’t it?

==========

There’s a song… It said: Moon in a cloud…

How to make sense of this.

I’ll try., but please, please, my unknown, invented friend, be patient, its not easy,

==========

A huge square in the last daylight, with tall gracious buildings around, views of parks, and cloudy dark-green trees, and down here orange trees with orange-gold fruits. At the east end of the square, some steps go up to a pavement of apricot marble. On this stands another high white tower. At the towers top, a clock. Actually, a CLOCK.

It must be—if it had been down on the square and any-one could’ve measured it—about the size of the Alabaster Fish Pool in the Garden of the House. Vast.

The CLOCK is in a frame of gold and silver, and up there, in front of it, stood three carved figures, very lifelike, except for being so big, painted, and gilded. One was a girl and one a man, and in the middle was a white horse up on its hind legs. Out of the horse’s forehead ran a crystal horn. And later I noticed it also had silvery folded wings.

As we arrived, people were leaning out of small windows at the tower top and lighting hanging lamps.

The square was full, and a cheer went up from the Peshambans and from everyone else. Even we cheered. I wasn’t sure why, but it seemed polite.

Blurn appeared, very smart and over-the-top in dark red, patterned boots, and earrings.

“Hi, Claidi. Like the clock?”

“It’s good.”

“They worship it,” said Blurn.

“Sorry?”

“The Peshambans. They worship that clock.”

The CLOCK was a… god?

But Blurn had strode on. And as the soft lights spangled over the CLOCK, other lamps were lighting all around.

The sky got bluer, deeper. Twilight. Stars came out.

There were long tables laid with such pretty food, wonderful colors and designs, and fruits I’d never seen before. And there were glass jugs in ice of wine or juice or mixtures of both, shining like rubies and topaz and jade.

Dagger slipped through the crowd. She wore green and a Peshamban mask shaped like a dragonfly.

“Its all free,” she breathed. “ ‘Cause of the festival.”

She grabbed a plate and piled it with food, far more than I’ve ever seen her eat, and darted off.

But by then the center of the square was clearing. There was to be dancing. Apparently all this tonight was done in the square to honor the CLOCK.

One of the bandit girls, Toy, pulled me.

“Come on, Claidi.”

“But I can’t dance.”

“Haven’t we spent
hours
teaching you, Claidibaa?”

“But those were Hulta dances—” I feebly protested.

“There’ll
be
Hulta dances. They play all dances for all the visitors. And we showed you three Peshamban dances too.”