Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 (14 page)

“But—”

“Hulta have come here before, in the past, remember?”

I was sure now I
wouldn’t
remember a step, would make a fool of myself.

But somewhere a band was tuning up, and I recognized for a second a phrase from a tune the girls had sung that afternoon in the Travelers’ Rest.

I found myself in the squares center in a line of laughing girls and women, between Teil and Toy.

A glance along the line made me feel happy, because everyone was shining and glittering and laughing.

Peshamban girls with glass or real jewels sewn all over their clothes, and masks of cats and butterflies.

Bandit girls clinking with coins. Women from all sorts of places I didn’t know, hadn’t ever known
existed
. At least I had Nemian to thank for
this
. For this freedom, this finding out. (Incidentally where was…?)

You’ve guessed, haven’t you? I was avoiding looking at the line of men opposite. It wasn’t going to matter too much this time. You changed partners three times in this particular dance.

Even so.

The band was over there under that fringed awning. Stringed instruments and flutes, what looked like a cello, and two drums. And two silver sheets that were suddenly clashed together, and the dance had begun.

I looked up into the amused and rather (already) drunk face of Ro.

A surge of relief and disappointment.

TOO late to think of anything else.

We were off.

Ro and I swept around each other, joined hands, and galloped sideways, just as everyone else did.

Then we swung in a circle with hands still joined.

Whoops and shouts.

We parted, stamped, and hands on hips, raised our heads like proud horses.

Now all the women joined hands, and we did light tapping steps on the spot, while the men looked on haughtily.

Then we stood back and clapped to the rhythm of the dance, and the men pretend-fought in pairs.

On Ro’s right was Badger, who now accidentally hit Ro on the nose. (This is
not
meant to happen.) Ro dropped back, spluttering, and crashed into the man on his left—Mehmed—and Mehmed’s pretend foe.

“Hey, you tronker—”

Stumbling, Mehmed trod on another mans foot. This man wasn’t bandit or Peshamban. His head was shaved except where hair, tied in a horses tail, flared from the back. And he gave a roar and smacked his fist, painted blue, into Mehmed’s face.

Next second, three or four men were rolling on the ground, swearing and kicking, with two bandit women—and a girl, also shaven and horsetailed—trying to separate and/or hit them with a nasty-looking metal-studded sash.

The Hulta girls, used to brawls, started laughing. But some of the Peshambans down the line looked upset. The dance had come all undone, though the band was still playing.

Next moment, a space opened in the crowd, just the way the wind had blown on the plain through all the flowers.

I’d seen more of the watching crystals that turned, up on buildings. They did watch, for now through the parting of people and orange trees came marching six of the clockwork doll-guards from the gates.

“Oops,” said Teil.

Toy said gloomily, “Now were in for it.”

To my horror I noted two of the doll-guards had
rifles
pointed right at us all.

Then another voice shouted loudly as a trumpet. I didn’t recognize it; it sounded made of brass.

But instantly somehow Ro and Mehmed scrambled up out of the muddle, leaving the horsetail man and another one flailing on the ground.

The doll-guards had reached us.

From out of a clockwork chest, a harsh unhuman voice, different from the one that had shouted, ordered:

“ Cease fighting”

“I have,” said Ro, annoyed.

“Shut
up”
muttered Mehmed, who had a blue smear on his cheek from the horsetail man’s fist.

However, the horsetail man and the other one rolled apart and sprang to their feet. They stared in alarm at the guards.

A silence settled as the band gave up.

The deadly doll now demanded something—the same something, I think, over and over in what seemed many different languages. It sounded very frightening. Finally the deadly doll demanded, “
Are you at
peace
now?”

“Sure, yes, completely. Love everybody, eh Mehm?”

“Love ‘em, yeah.”

The horsetail man and the other one had already mumbled something at other points in the language performance, doubtless also saying how they loved everyone.

Then a man in scarlet and gold moved in between us and the rifles. He was breathing fast from, running down the line of dancers, and from shouting.

“A misunderstanding,” he said to the dolls with rifles and axes. “I sincerely apologize. It wont happen again.”

I hadn’t recognized his voice in the battle-bellow that had stopped Ro and Mehmed as nothing else could. Now it was different again—like poured cream.

And the rifles were being lowered.

“Do
no harm in Peshamba”
said the doll. “
Peshamba does no harm to you
.” The weirdest thing. Some of the oranges on the orange trees flew open, and little colored clockwork birds flew out of them and up into the lamplight to circle around and around. Just a coincidence, possibly.

I was taken aback anyway. But the guards had turned around and were marching neatly away again.

The horsetail girl fetched the horsetail man a ringing smack across his face. He cowered. What she was hissing at him I couldn’t understand, thank goodness.

Ro and Mehmed laughed.

The music started once more, and the crowd was closing over like a repaired split seam. And the dance began again, again taking me by surprise.

It was apparently time to change partners as well.

The magnificent man in red grasped my hands and whirled me away down the avenue of dancers before I had time to wonder if now
I’d really
forgotten the steps.

“I didn’t cause it.”

“I’d take a bet you did. You’re trouble, girl.”

We paused to swing around hand in hand.

The lines of men and women clapped in time to the music.

He was smiling.

Argul.

I’d never seen him look so sensational. His hair was like black Peshamban silk. The color red suited him.

All that gold—

And now he took me by the waist and lifted me high in the dance—steps I truly didn’t know—I couldn’t do a thing, just stare down at his smiling, marvelous face. His teeth, in that tawny face, are so white…

He looks happy tonight. He looks
alive
.

I couldn’t help laughing. I put my head back and laughed at the spinning starry sky.

When he set me on my feet, he steadied me, helped me get my balance again, but all the time we were still dancing…

The dance had changed, in fact.

It was a Peshamban dance the girls had shown me. You move quite slowly, holding hands and taking easy, simple steps. Looking into each other’s faces.

This was the dance I’d been afraid no one would want to choose me for.

“I don’t mean to be trouble,” I said.

“Oh Claidi,” he said. “You can’t help it. Don’t try. Its what a bird like you’s good at.” I frowned. But I didn’t care. Although he was insulting me, they didn’t feel like insults. He said, “Don’t change. You’re wonderful.”

The music of the dance had a song. It was something about the moon in a cloud and getting lost in the cloud of the moon.

Sky so dark now, and the stars behind his head. The lamps, and the little mechanical birds flying.

Everyone enjoying themselves, yet far away. The mood of the night like rosy curtains in the background.

I thought, I
know
this person. I know him as well as I know myself. But I didn’t know him. I don’t know myself.

We danced every dance.

Sometimes there were dances where we were separated. But we always met up again. Then he caught hold of me strongly. I felt I couldn’t go wrong then.

I’ve never felt like that before.

Maybe I never will again.

==========

Not much warning. The band stopped playing. And everyone in the square, following the lead of the local Peshambans, raised their heads to look at the CLOCK.

Suddenly there was a strange noise, like a gigantic key turning in a lock. And then tinkly music began to drift down from the tall white tower.

The three figures on the CLOCK started to move.

The girl twirled, dancing as I had. The man bowed and stretched out his hand to stroke the horse with the crystal horn, which, at that moment opened its wings.

And then they glided away behind the CLOCK, and other figures emerged from the other side. There was an old man leaning on a stick, and an Old Lady in a high headdress, and a monstrous beast. It had the body of a lion, a tail like three snakes knotted together, and the head of a bird.

The old man regally raised his stick in greeting, and the Old Lady raised her slender hands. And the beast opened its mouth
and fire
came out, cascades of yellow sparks.

In the crowd below lots of people cried out in surprise. But the Peshambans only sighed with joy, looking up with loving eyes at the CLOCK that was their god.

I whispered to Argul, “It’s amazing. But do they really worship it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because they say its beautiful, and God is beautiful.”

Somehow this wasn’t, at that moment, confusing.

“I see,”‘ I said. I thought I did.

“And,” said Argul, “they say the clock needs only a little attention to keep it working, and that’s all religion needs too.”

“Religion…”

“Their worship of it, belief in it. Only a little work to keep perfection perfect.” The music faded, and the three new figures became still. They’re the figures that face the city from midnight to sunrise. Then they change again, but silently.

When the CLOCK had finished its display, and the Peshambans who were praying had stopped, Argul brought me a goblet of green wine. (Prayer isn’t only for rage or dismay. It seems to be just happiness, sometimes.)

Suddenly I could see why that first time I’d thought him so terrible, terrifying—he’s so strong, so powerful. So
there
.

After that we walked up through the city, beyond the square and the CLOCK. I don’t think we discussed why.

The streets were hung with trees, and were cool, and smelled of flowers and scented dust and darkness.

There was another park. Peach-tinted lamps drooped from boughs.

We sat on a marble bench shaped like a bush under a large bush that had been cut and combed into the shape of a chair.

“Oh,
look”
I said, “another mechanical doll!”

It was a fantastic bird, gleaming blue in the park lamplight. It had all at once lifted its drifting tail and opened it like a fan of green and turquoise, purple and gold.

“No, Claidi. It’s a peacock.”

“Its real?”

“Yes. As real as you.”

“I don’t feel real tonight. I never knew cities existed anymore.”

“When I was a child,” he said, “my mother told me about Peshamba.”

“Did she?”

“There’s something written on the face of the clock. You can only see it from the top of the tower. It says:
There’s time enough for everything
.”

“Is there?”

“I hope so,” he said.

Testingly, I said, “I haven’t met your mother, have I?”

“No. She died eight years ago, when I was ten.”

I felt tremendously sorry. It was true. And now it reminded me of Twilight, my own lost mother.

“That’s so sad.”

“Sad for the ones she left behind. She knew such a lot. Herbs, and chemicals. Some of them, now, call her the Witch. But she wasn’t that. She understood science, though she did have second sight.”

“What’s that?”

“She could see things the others couldn’t. Sometimes the future. She gave me—” He made a gesture toward his collar, then stopped. “A charm, or so we call it now. But it’s scientific. It can tell you things.”

“I remember it,” I said. “Its made of glass.”

“No. It just seems to be.”

“You were looking at it…” I hesitated, “that time… when I thought you were going to rob us.”

“Were not bandits, Claidi,” he said. “We get called that. I wont say we’ve never thieved, but only to protect our own people, and never from people who hadn’t enough themselves. And we’ve fought and killed for the same reason. But not from choice. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me for some time. The moon had risen late; it was in the sky. His dark eyes seemed more intense. Or the moon… was in a cloud, perhaps.

“I saw you first,” he said, “in that dry old park in Chariot Town. You were with him, your posh lordly friend.”

“Nemian.”

“That one, yes.”

“I didn’t see you—”

“No. It was just me and Blurn, out for a stroll. We trade with Sheepers, but we don’t always trust them.

We were just making sure of the town before any of the others came in later. We looked… a bit different.”

“And you
saw
me?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t add anything, so I said, “You didn’t realize I was going to be bartered to the Feather Tribe.”

“You’d left by the time I did. Then we came after you.”

“Why?” I said.

“Why do you think?”

I said, humbly, “Because you help people.”

I wanted him to say, of course, “I did it because you’re so incredible, Claidi.” He wouldn’t. He stared down his nose at me, his eyes burning and the moon pale in the trees behind his head.

What he did say was this: “Why don’t you stay with us? You re a pleasure to watch with Sirree, a natural rider. And you look your best in Hulta clothes. We live well. We look after our own, and others, when we can. You don’t have to be afraid of anything with us—not be hungry or thirsty, or in danger. We travel. We go everywhere there is. Did you know there are enormous seas, Claidi? You do? Miles of just water and sky. And animals so odd you’d scream. Join our Family, Claidi. Stay.” Thud, thud, my heart in my throat.