Free Tanith Lee - Claidi Journals 01 by Law of the Wolf Tower

dull. You must have been very bored.”
    “It was all rules and senseless Rituals,” I muttered.
    “I can guess. Rules should n e v e r be boring,” he oddly replied.
    Then he leaned over and kissed me lightly on the lips.
    I was so stunned, it meant almost nothing as it happened. So I have to keep recalling it, reliving it, that kiss. Trying to feel its staggering importance.
    In a funny way it makes me think of when I scalded myself once as a child. For some moments I didn’t feel a thing.
    I’m still waiting to feel this. I know when I do, it will be colossal, sweeping through me like the pain of the scald, only not pain at all.
    After he’d kissed me, we went on talking as if nothing at all had happened.
    He knows so muck But then, I know nothing .
    My head’s bursting now with sketches of other places in the Waste—towns, cities, places where they use hot-air balloons for flight.
    A couple of times, people had passed, more or less unnoticed by me. But then some sheep came wandering by, and after them some couples, saying to us shyly, “Brur’naa-baa,” which apparently (for Nemian) means something like “Are we disturbing you?” And since they seemed awkward, and its their garden, we got up and walked back to the guesthouse.
     
    When I’d climbed up the ladder (no lifters here) to my narrow bed, piled with woolen blankets and scented by sheep, I was frozen.
    Since I couldn’t sleep at all, I’ve sat and written this down, and now I think that may be dawn, that light low in the window—or is it?

    ==========
After I went down the ladder again, I peered over the sort of gallery there, where a famous sheepskull called Praaa burns a big candle all night.
    Coming into the guesthouse was a crowd of men, mostly young. They were dressed in a rather fantastic way—skin trousers, tunics, boots, jackets with gilded buttons and tassels, and whirling cloaks. They had a lot of weapons, knives, and bows, and a couple of rifles.
    The Sheepers were baaing and bowing.
    Candlelight pranced on wild tanned faces.
    I wondered if Nemian knew about this, and if it was going to be useful.
    But really, they looked—the newcomers—like accounts I’d heard mumbled in tales in the House.
    Wandering bands of bandits from the Waste, criminals who’d stab you as soon as say hello.
    I crept back up the ladder and huddled into bed.
    Of course, the House told lies about the Waste. The Waste isn’t like anything I was told—or not all of it.
    Or not all of what I’ve seen so far.

    ==========
Finally I did go to sleep, because I was woken by a riotous row downstairs.
    Was it the bandits? What were they doing? Murdering everyone and about to set fire to the guesthouse?
    I scrambled up and got dressed, but just then one of the Sheeper women came in, bleated, and handed me some milk and a piece of bread.
    You can imagine I wanted to ask her what was going on, but I couldn’t speak the baa-language, and pointing anxiously at the floor and straining my eyebrows up and down only seemed to make her think I thought there were mice in the room. She hurried about looking under the wool rugs, found nothing, and bleating reassuringly, went out all smiles.
    Presumably, as she’d brought the breakfast and was smiling, nothing too awful was taking place.
    I ate. Then I washed my hair in what was left of last nights washing-water. I did it for something to do, really. The day was already hot, and I was soon almost dry. Someone knocked.
    It was one of the Shepherd’s men. He put a small chunk of wood into my hand. I bleat-thanked him and stood there stupidly. Then he pointed at the wood, and I saw something had been scratched on it. The Sheepers didn’t have paper. Their writing seemed to have something to do with the patterns they make with the beads and things on the sheep…
    Anyway, the scratches read: “Go with him. Bring everything you want. Were leaving at once.” I gulped. “From Nemian.?” I asked.
    “N’baa miaan’baa,” said