Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 (16 page)

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(I’ve been trying to work out how long the journey has taken so far, from the House to this house overlooking the River. I’ve gotten muddled though. It seems to have gone on forever.) It was sunset when we reached the marshes. The stream, which had gotten wider and slower, with islands of the tall grass, eventually became choked with reeds.

The boat driver (I never did learn his proper title) poled us carefully between. The low sun glinted red and copper on the water, all striped with reed shadows.

Out of this somehow mournful picture, a building rose, not very cheery either. Black stone, with pillars and a strange up-pointing roof.

Nemian told me it was a shrine. Ah. I knew about shrines. (?) This one was in honor of the marsh god.

But when we landed at the water-steps and climbed up them cautiously—they were slippery and very old—there was an image of the god on a black slab. I thought at first it was another clock, but it wasn’t.

They worship the moon, to which, they say there, the marshes belong.

“Why?” I said. I’ve never stopped asking questions. If that stops, frankly I think I’m done for.

“The Wide River lies over beyond the marshes. Its tidal, and so are they.”

“Tidal. Like seas?”

Apparently so. They drain and fill, affected by the pull of the moon. So, the moons a god in the marshes.

Later, when we were in the hall of the shrine—a gloomy old place and no mistake—eating some gloomy bread and bitter, crumbly (gloomy) cheese, I spoke to Nemian about this thing of God and gods.

“God is everything,” he said. “Gods, individual gods, I mean, are expressions of God. As we are.”

“We’re
part of
God?” I goggled. I’d begun to have great respect for this (unknown) and superastonishing Being.

“God gave us life,” said Nemian simply.

 

He looked so special, and so quiet and sad, and what he said, the way he’d explained or tried to (God may be inexplicable, I somehow guess), I could see Argul in Nemian. Just for a second. So different, like the voice, the accent. But…

I put my hand on his. I hadn’t been very nice to him—not affectionate or flattered, after he’d gone down on his knees. (Well, one knee anyway.)

He glanced at me, and he smiled. He seemed suddenly very pleased, delighted, excited.

And I was flattered after all.

Perhaps it might be all right?

“Claidi, may I ask you a favor?”

Cautious, as on the stairs, I nodded.

“I’d like to get back to calling you by your full name.”

“Oh.”

“When we reach my City, they’ll expect it. In public. You’ll be treated as you should be, as someone important, vital. And
Claidi
is a bit… not quite dignified enough, is it?”

“Really.”

“Don’t be angry, Claidi—Claidissa, may I?”

“All right. But I’ll have to get used to it.”

It isn’t me. So, more confusion. Who’s this Claidissa woman?

We were at the shrine of the moon until moonrise, when one of the shadowy people there told us the Riders had come.

Out we went, and there below the water-steps I saw this:

Over the dark marshes, the dark sky and the moon. And in the water between the reeds, enormous lizards, colored the dark red of a Garden-bred rose. Some just lay there, wallowing, as the hippos had done in the Garden river. But others had openwork cages strapped on their backs, and men were sitting in these.

What I’d expected I can’t say. I wouldn’t have gotten it right, whatever it was.

“What are—?”

“They’re alligators, Claidissa. And those things on their backs are riding-jadaja.”

“Ja-daja. I see.”

The alligators, some of them, flickered their tails. All their red scales skittered moonlight. They were very beautiful, but their eyes were cold and shone a moonish green.

The moon did have a green tinge too. A sort of vapor was wisping up the sky, wrapping over it. The moon in a cloud— lost in the cloud of the moon. Or just lost in the marshes of the moon.

 

“What fun,” I depressedly said.

But then the Riders were slipping off, all agile, onto the steps. They carried things to offer the moon god.

Things they’d shot with arrows mostly, in the marsh.

People have to eat. I suppose they have to make offerings, too. But it looked pretty dismal.

Nemian, to my amazement, couldn’t speak the language of the Alligator Riders. Someone from the shrine had to help. At last, something was agreed, and then an alligator was guided by its Rider up to the steps, and somehow we stepped on it, and got into the quite-big cage, and sat down on its padded floor.

I wondered if these people used money. Decided they might not. Their hair was unevenly cut short, and they wore reed-woven garments. (Nemian told me after; at the time I could only see they looked rough and ready.) Their jewelry consisted of polished pebbles, alligator claws, and teeth.

The cage jadaja thing was also made from reeds.

Our Rider didn’t seem to mind not calling in at the shrine. Perhaps they consider it part of their worship of the moon to assist travelers who meet them by moonlight.

As he guided his beast away, by gentle kicks and pats on its sides, the Rider began to sing, raising his eyes to the moon.

The moon was green in its veil. Mists rose from the marshes. The water glimmered like old glass.

His miserable-sounding song, with its no-doubt-miserable unknown words, made me want to howl like one of the Hulta’s dogs, only they seldom had.

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We were in the marshes a few days and nights. We stopped off at tiny villages of reed houses, where people sat fishing or mending nets, and the women wove cloth from reeds, at reed-built looms.

A silent people. They didn’t say much to each other. Nemian communicated by signals. They gave us fish and edible leaves and unpleasant-tasting water that must have been all right.

The mouth of an alligator is one man-length long. Or a little longer. They have about three million teeth, or so it looked. But I saw Rider children swimming around with them, diving under the water with them.

Even toddlers.

Alligators smell fishy. Or these did.

We
did, soon.

One sunset—I must describe it. Some salts in the marsh sometimes cause weird colors. But the sky went lavender, and the sun was ginger. And these hues mixed in the water. Lightning fluttered, dry, without rain or wind or thunder. And the lightning was rainbow-colored and in shapes—like branching trees, bridges, rolling wheels.

He said, “Its pretty. I’ve never seen this, although I’ve heard of it. Marsh lightning. Its nothing, of course, to City fireworks.”

We got here, to River Jaws, yesterday. The“ marsh ends here, and from the upper story of the guesthouse, if it is, you can see over the lines and ranks of reeds to an endless sheet of water. Wide River.

 

It does sink down and rise up—tidal, as he said.

There seem to be servants here. They speak the language I do, and some other language. Nemian can speak both of these.

The reason we re waiting: Nemian sent someone from here to arrange another boat.

No sooner did I write that than Nemian came by, just now, and enthusiastically told me we’ll leave tomorrow.

In three days, he enthused, we’ll be there—in his City with the fireworks and the Wolf Tower. His home.

Mine.

HIS CITY

Wide River’s wide. One seems to drift in the middle of space or the sky, because the sky reflects in the River, and they become one. And there’s only the boat—no land on either side.

A huge curved sail, filling slowly with steady,
breathing
wind. Like a lung.

They
were
slaves—I mean, the people who waited on us. I’d never been waited on—the opposite, of course. I wasn’t keen on it. And they were slaves, not servants. Two men and a woman, who sat in the boats back—its
stern
—cross-legged, heads down, ready for Nemian to call or snap his fingers.

Also, there were two sailors to drive the boat. (Or, it was a ship, I think.) Very respectful. No, they groveled.

Feeling so uncomfortable with this, I spent a lot of time sitting by the side, staring out.

Sunset the first night was glorious.

“Look at all the gold.” I said to Herman. Every so often I tried to speak to him.

“If you like that, I think I can really please you,” said Nemian.

Baffled, I let him take me to the cabin room where I was to sleep. The slave woman was there, and she bowed almost to her knees.

“The Princess Claidissa,” said Nemian, “will be shown the dress now.” So then the poor old slave undid a chest and brought out this dress.

Even in the House, I admit, I never saw a dress quite so magnificent. In the wild light reflecting off sky and River, the golden tissue of the dress seemed made of fire.

“That’s what you’ll wear,” announced Nemian, “when we sail into my City.” I was meant to be thrilled, and thank him, and tweet with delight.

Well, I did thank him.

“Its a very grand dress.”

“Oh, I know you prefer simple clothes,” said Nemian kindly. “Jizania told me about that. I even do believe you used to polish the odd table or whatever it was. You’re a funny little thing. But in public you’ll need to dress up.”

Obviously, not to let him down. That was fair. He was bringing me back, showing me off. I had to be acceptable to them. It was worrying, all this. If I was to be with him—I mean
be
with him as a companion, perhaps a wife (I’d never been sure)—I’d have to be responsible. Take pains.

Princess Claidissa.

Oh.

“Oh,” I said, quite humbly.

We had dinner on the deck, waited on hand and foot, arm and leg, as it were. Wine and fruit and dishes under silver covers.

Rather like the House.

What had I expected?

Maybe, at the start, I’d even wanted it—to be served, have things done for
me
. What other system had I ever been shown? It was either lord it or live as a slave.

Since then…

I chatted brightly. Oh, see, there were birds flying over. Oh, look, there was an island with a tree.

Dusk went to night. I went in to sleep. Couldn’t.

It was almost four days, in the end. The wind was often slow; the tides made it take longer, or something.

They said these things to him, apologizing, acting bothered in case he got angry. But Nemian, thank God, was just offhand and idle with them, only slightly impatient once or twice. Never rude or vicious or violent.

On the last day, the land began to appear regularly on either side. But the weather had changed. It got chilly. The skies and the water were two silk sheets of grey.

Then clouds came, and rain fell in tired little sprinkles.

Just after lunch, a tall, tall, smooth, slim, grey stone appeared, standing on the nearer bank—we could now see both of them. There wasn’t much else—a few trees, trailing down into the water, and a flattish plain, with thin mountain shapes on the left that must be months in the distance. (Altogether rather a bare sort of place, it seemed.)

“Ah!” cried Nemian, though, and jumped up.

He saluted the pillar, or whatever it was, standing very straight, just as
it
was. And all the slaves and boat-slaves bowed over double.

Nemian turned to me. His face was alight with energy.

“Only an hour or so more, Claidissa. Then we’ll be there.” I felt immediately sick. This seemed ridiculous. I should be interested, at least.

“I’m so glad,” I said.

 

“Go and get ready now, Claidissa.”

“Oh, but—”

“Its all right. I’ll change on deck in that tent thing. Just concentrate on yourself.” In fact I’d been going to say I wouldn’t need “an hour or so” to get ready. But it wouldn’t matter, really, so I did what he said, and the woman slave followed me into the cabin.

How wrong I was. It did take all of two hours.

First washing, and hair-washing, and drying, and then perfumes and things. All fine, only I felt peculiar, so it wasn’t.

Then the slave dressed me in lace undies and slid me into the golden dress.

After that stockings and shoes, bracelets, earrings. (Even a gold bag for this book.) My hair was still damp, but the slave began to arrange it. Parts were plaited, and bits were put up with pins, and some hung down in curls that were made with two heated iron sticks—tongs, she said—and there was a nasty smell of scorched hair—mine.

She made up my face. She put on powder, and dark around the eyes, and blush for the mouth and cheeks.

She even colored my fingernails with gold, and I had to sit there like an insane sort of tree, holding out my hands, fingers stretched apart to let the stuff dry.

When I got back on the deck, Nemian was standing there in his black and gold, looking regal. He gave me a nod—which seemed mean after the two-hour preparation. He could have said, I thought, How nice you look, or something. Even if only for the slaves benefit—she’d worked so hard.

The slaves served us yellow wine in tall glasses.

And the City appeared.

I’d been thinking, uneasily, how dreary it all looked, all this flattish greyishness, with higher greyish things—I didn’t know what—starting to poke up. There was a vague rain-mist. Everything looked ghostly.

And then this enormous
heap
swelled up and closed in all around.

Out of the mist reared a gigantic black statue. It was slick with rain, gleaming. What was it? It seemed to be a frowning man, his head raised high into the mist.

I was still puzzling over it, but other shapes, all completely huge, were now pushing in behind, and the ship-boat floated as if helpless in among them.

High stone banks rose from the river. Up from these, piled terraces of dark buildings, stone on stone.

And towers loomed in the sky, softened only by the mist. From one or two windows, a faint light seeped.

They glistened, though, in the wet, like dark snakes.

And everywhere, the gigantic statues, in pale marble or black basalt. Rearing beasts (lions, bears?). A grim stone woman leaned down toward the River, so I thought for a moment (terrified) this statue was tumbling and would fall right on the boat. In her upstretched stone hand, a real (vast) mirror, which reflected our upturned faces, small as the faces of mice.