The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  ‘I will drop you,’ Gojam said in his usual kindly voice, ‘in the vicinity of Alphenlicht.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘But my dear, if you didn’t tell the creature precisely where you wanted to be left off, you shouldn’t be angry if he just dropped you nearby.’ Ellat offered Marianne a towel. ‘Perhaps dung doesn’t mean to it what it does to us.’

  Though Marianne did not remember Ellat, the woman’s astonishing familiarity and friendliness did not permit Marianne to react as to a stranger. ‘A dung pile is a dung pile,’ Marianne objected. ‘And I don’t for one moment think Gojam didn’t know it.’

  ‘What was it you said it was? A momentary god? Makr Avehl mentioned momentary gods just before he went after you.’

  ‘Gojam, the one with the peculiar sense of humor, went back, wherever they go. We have the other five with us, the dog ones.’

  ‘Aghrehond said something about it. I suggested the kennels, but he … he didn’t think that would do.’

  ‘They’re not really dogs, you know, Ellat. Not really.’

  ‘As for that, Marianne, who are you, really?’ The older woman turned Marianne around so she could look into her eyes. ‘Are you the girl I knew?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marianne.

  ‘No,’ said Marianne.

  It came out as a gargle.

  ‘You’re not sure,’ Ellat offered in a sympathetic tone. ‘Or maybe you’re both.’

  ‘An uncomfortable both,’ Marianne said, gritting her teeth. ‘The thinking part works well, thank you. We each seem to have control of our own thoughts. But sometimes both of us try to use the body at once. I go left, she goes right. I say yes, she says no. We seem to gargle and stagger a lot. Well, you get the idea.’

  ‘Not at all pleasant,’ agreed Ellat. ‘Couldn’t you agree to take turns?’

  ‘It may come to that,’ Marianne agreed, closing her eyes wearily. ‘Except that I’m still half convinced this whole thing is a dream. Did Makr Avehl tell you about the world he found me in?’

  Ellat shook her head. Actually, he had said a few words, but only a few, and most of those had had to do with Madame Delubovoska.

  ‘I was managing a laundry,’ Marianne mused.

  ‘The Cave of Light showed him a woman washing clothes,’ Ellat offered. ‘I imagine that’s how he found you.’

  ‘What I can’t understand is why? Even in dream there should be some logic. Why a laundry?’

  Ellat stirred, a little uncomfortably. ‘You might discuss that with Therat…’

  ‘Therat?’

  ‘One of the Kavi. She is extremely interested in the power of symbols. I imagine she’ll tell you that the laundry was symbolic of something in your life. Some need for cleanliness or being cleansed of something. Some unexpressed wish for redemption, perhaps. Madame summoned you into her world, but your own conscious or subconscious symbolic structure would largely have determined the specific role you would play in that environment. At least, that’s my understanding of the way it works.’

  ‘A laundry!’ Marianne shook her head. ‘And then there’s this business of memory only working one way! When I’m there, I can’t remember here. But when I’m here, I can remember there well enough. Not like a dream at all, which is upsetting, because if it’s all a dream, which I believe it is, then I ought not to be able to remember it. Unless I’m not awake yet.’ She made a petulant gesture, aware of how ridiculous this sounded. ‘Well, let it go. I think the important thing for me now is to find out about air schedules to get home. If it’s a dream, I’ll dream my flight back. I may have already lost my job, not showing up for so long.’

  ‘How long do you think, my dear?’

  ‘Days. Weeks. Maybe months. No – only weeks, I think.’

  ‘Actually, less than one day.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Not at all. It was only last night that we awoke, Makr Avehl and I, knowing something had happened to you. It is only a few hours since Aghrehond went after Makr Avehl. Time does not move in the false worlds as it moves here. Madame can do a year’s worth of damage in the false worlds in what passes for moments here in our world. In the dream worlds, one can live many lives in one lifetime or one can effectively experience an eternity of discomfort or horror.’

  Both Mariannes took a moment to absorb this. ‘Well, little time or a lot, I’ve still got to get back to work,’ said the younger one. She rose with a bit of bustle, wanting to do something decisive, tired of being done to and with.

  ‘Marianne,’ said Makr Avehl from the doorway where, clad only in clean trousers, he stood vigorously toweling his head. ‘Don’t be silly. You can’t.’ His voice was fond, loving, concerned.

  ‘I most certainly can,’ she turned, eyes blazing, furious at his assumption of authority over her.

  His lips clamped tight in disappointment and anger. ‘Then you’ll most certainly end up back in some laundry, or some library, or some dungeon once again! Madame is not going to give up. Can’t you get that through your head?’ He threw the towel on the floor and stamped on it with his bare feet as he left the room, shouting for someone to get him a shirt.

  ‘He doesn’t like me,’ said Marianne, slightly discomfited. ‘He really doesn’t.’

  ‘It isn’t that,’ Ellat murmured. ‘But you do rather stand between him and someone he loves very dearly.’

  ‘Her,’ snarled Marianne. ‘I know.’ She waited grimly for Marianne to assert herself, but there was only a silent, somehow satisfied watchfulness inside.

  ‘True, but it isn’t only that. He feels responsible for you. You both, I should say. The situation must be resolved, and he’s quite right. If you go back home, you’ll only end up ensorceled once again.’

  ‘If the damned woman wants to kill me, why doesn’t she just do it and get it over with? Why all this folderol, this magic this and that. I really don’t understand it. Don’t believe it. Don’t like it.’

  ‘Well, my dear, none of us do. As to why she doesn’t just hire some thug to murder you – well, the reason is fairly obvious I should think. She doesn’t really want you dead. She wants you in a state of subservience. She needs something from you. You really should enquire about your parents’ estate, Marianne. If Tabiti is seeking to enslave you, it must be because you have or will have some authority she wants.’

  ‘Well, I already have inquired about the estate,’ Marianne confessed, a little shamefacedly. ‘When Makr Avehl visited our home, he said something about it which piqued my curiosity, so I asked Mama. Evidently my independence has impressed Papa sufficiently that he has named me as the executor, for everything. I had always assumed there would be a number of trustees—and there will be if anything happens to me – but if anything happens to Mama and Papa and I’m alive and well, I’ll be the only one.’

  ‘Well then, you have the explanation, so don’t be foolish,’ said Makr Avehl from the door. He had managed to get himself almost fully dressed, and was now tucking in an unbuttoned shirt that displayed a generous extent of muscular and smooth-skinned chest. ‘It’s obvious what Tabiti wants – just what she’s wanted all along: control of the Zahmani estates. She enslaves you, then does away with your parents, and she’s what you Americans would call home free.’

  Marianne withdrew her eyes from Makr Avehl’s naked chest, surprised to find that simple action very difficult. ‘Ah – um, I did think she was going to kill me, though, there in the arena.’ The sight of his body was doing strange things to her breathing.

  ‘I think not. The threat to you was a ploy designed to get me into the act,’ Makr Avehl said, buttoning his shirt. ‘Since I represent a challenge to her plans, naturally, she wants me out of the way entirely.’

  ‘If she had killed you there, would you be … that is, would it have…’

  ‘Would it have killed me here and now? Oh, very much so. Because everything that makes me me was there. All that was left here was a kind of anchor.’

  ‘And yet when we’re … th
ere, we don’t remember … here.’

  ‘No, because if we did, we couldn’t be fully involved in the dream world. Our memories of home would keep us from interacting with where we are and what we’re doing. You couldn’t really have been concerned about that laundry if you’d remembered home, could you? Could I have believed in myself as Prince Charming if I had remembered who I was?’

  ‘Does Madame remember who she is when she’s there?’

  Makr Avehl looked puzzled. ‘You know, I haven’t the least idea. It wouldn’t surprise me. In fact, that could be part of the secret of her power, an ability to take her memory intact into the false worlds. It would be quite a trick, wouldn’t it, Ellat?’

  ‘It would indeed,’ she said with a harsh twist to her lips. ‘Though I hate to think what she must have done to gain that ability. Not something I think we want to try for, Makr Avehl.’

  ‘No fear, Sister.’

  ‘May I enter, most exalted one?’ Aghrehond stood at the door, his hair still wet from the thorough washing he had given it. Of them all, Aghrehond had been most completely buried in the dung pile. ‘May I greet our guest in my own inimitable person? May I say hello and how-de-do and welcome to Alphenlicht?’

  Ellat beckoned him. ‘Don’t be an ass. Hondi. Come in.’

  ‘But I am an ass, Lady. Or was. First cousin to one. Did I make an excellent horse, Marianne? Was I splendid?’

  ‘Perfectly splendid, Aghrehond,’ she choked, fighting her internal twin for possession of her voice.

  ‘I liked you better as the grassy dog,’ said Marianne, taking over. ‘I liked you as Cani Grassi, Aghrehond. Fighting the Manticore.’

  Makr Avehl stepped forward to embrace her, holding her very tightly only for a moment, then stepping back as she started to writhe away from him.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ said Marianne, not entirely convincingly. She found herself panting.

  ‘It was the other one I embraced,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t take it personally.’

  She, however, was taking it very personally, since every inch of her body yearned toward him. Her limbs felt loosened, somehow separated from her, as though they were floating. Hot, sweet liquid was running through her veins, and there was a tingle in her breasts. She breathed as though she had been running. She sat down abruptly, sending a confused, hostile thought toward her tenant.

  ‘Damn it, do you have to melt like that?’

  ‘I love him, silly girl. What do you want me to do? Simply ignore how I feel?’

  ‘I want you to go back where you came from.’

  ‘I am where I came from. Precisely.’

  ‘Then go wherever you went when I was twelve.’

  ‘Not on your life. I tried that, and all it did was almost get us both killed.’

  ‘What brought you back, anyhow?’

  ‘You know very well!’ Marianne felt the internal blush.

  ‘Oh, the Sleeping Princess was awakened by Prince Charming’s kiss? Isn’t that a dreadful cliché?’

  ‘Marianne!’ Ellat was shaking her. ‘Stop that. Your eyes are crossed and you’re making disgusting noises. If you have to argue with yourself, go out in the garden and do it out loud.’ She pushed the embarrassed girl out the door and made a gesture at the two men who had been watching, open-mouthed. ‘And as for you two, go away. Makr Avehl, I’m ashamed of you. You’re not helping, not at all.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Ellat?’ he echoed Marianne’s silent question. ‘Pretend she isn’t here?’

  ‘You could try that. For a time. While we try or she tries or they try to sort it out.’

  He gave her a surly look, but did not argue with that particular point. ‘I’ve reached a decision, Ellat.’

  ‘I thought you might have,’ she replied mildly, folding the towel he had dropped on the floor. ‘Since you wouldn’t have come back to Alphenlicht, otherwise.’

  ‘We’re going to have to confront Madame.’

  ‘I assumed that, also.’

  ‘Sometimes I despair, Ellat. Will I ever be able to surprise you?’

  ‘Yes. If you’d listen to me, ever, it would surprise me enormously. I told you years ago we would have to deal with Tabiti, forthrightly and personally. You, on the other hand, preferred diplomatic maneuver and, more recently, this dream-world pursuit.’

  ‘Not my choice!’

  ‘True. However, in my opinion, the best time to have struck at Tabiti would have been immediately on your return from – what shall I say? – episode one. Before you went searching for Marianne again. While Tabiti was still confused.’

  ‘You overlook one thing,’ he replied in a dry voice. ‘If she was confused, which I’m not at all certain of, I was even more so.’

  ‘Yes. Well. That’s as may be, and nothing was done at the time, so it’s fruitless to speak of it. What do you plan now?’

  ‘I plan a visit to the Cave of Light, Ellat. With Marianne. Tabiti gets her power from somewhere…’

  ‘I thought her power had always been attributed to shamanistic influences.’

  ‘That’s only a label. Yes, I have no doubt she was taught whatever she knows by the black shamans, but what did they teach her? Where does she draw her force from?’

  ‘And if you find out?’

  ‘We must find a way to cut it off. Marianne will never be safe until we do – the world may not be safe until we do.’

  ‘You’re aware that there is a great deal of risk in such an endeavor.’

  ‘So far as I can see, there’s more risk in doing nothing. It’s a case of being damned if we do and damned if we don’t.’

  Ellat said nothing to this, choosing instead to cling tightly to a serenity of spirit that had cost her a good deal to achieve. He would do it. She could not in good conscience advise otherwise. She would do what she had done so often in the past.

  Wait and hope.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Therat recommended an afternoon reading from the Cave of Light, then spent the morning hours with Marianne, telling her of the history of the Cave. ‘I can’t expect you to believe in it totally,’ she smiled, her lips belying her eyes which burned into Marianne’s own with a fervid glow. ‘We do expect that you not come into the Cave as a skeptic. Just be open to whatever happens.’

  ‘Do I need to do anything? Learn any chants or responses or anything?’

  ‘Nothing at all. We’ll do the reciting. You will need to stand in darkness for a few moments, which makes some people rather dizzy. I’ll be next to you and you can hold on to me if you like.’

  ‘Do I get to see the – symbols or whatever they are?’

  ‘Certainly. All those present are requested to verify whatever message the Cave seems to be offering.’

  ‘What do I wear?’

  ‘Whatever you like. Ellat will give you a robe to cover whatever you’re wearing, but that’s tradition, not ritual. I’ve recommended about two o’clock, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘I don’t know why not,’ said Marianne. She had been waiting all morning for Marianne to interrupt her or supersede her in some action, but nothing of the kind had happened. Still, the sense of being occupied was very strong. Marianne had not gone away.

  When they arrived at the Cave that afternoon – Ellat, Aghrehond, Makr Avehl and Marianne – Therat, along with Nalavi and Cyram, met them at the entrance cavern and escorted them down the winding, sandy-floored tunnel by the light of flaring lanterns. Every wall, every pillar, every square inch of exposed stone was decorated with symbols: words, phrases, or numbers; some superimposed upon others; some ancient, some newly chiseled or painted on the stone.

  They placed their lanterns upon the central altar. Words were chanted that Marianne did not recognize. She knew what they meant, however. In the ancient language of the Magi, the question that the Cave was to answer had been asked. What was the source of Madame’s power?

  She felt Therat take her arm as the lanterns were turned off. They stood in darkness. Ab
ove them the great, perforated bulk of the mountain rested, spongy with mica-lined worm holes, through which the light from the outer world was reflected in and down, faint glimmerings, no more than the smallest candle glow, falling through all that weight of rock and earth into the cavern below. Light, reflected from leaf or stream or animal or stone. Never twice the same.

  ‘I see light,’ whispered Marianne.

  ‘The light rests on an hourglass,’ said Therat.

  ‘A sundial,’ said Nalavi.

  ‘A clock,’ said Cyram, all three of them at once, looking in three different directions. Then they were in darkness once more, unrelieved and absolute. After a moment, Therat sighed and struck a light. ‘Well, Makr Avehl?’

  ‘Time,’ he said. ‘The source of her power is time.’

  ‘What’s the matter, Makr Avehl?’ asked Marianne. ‘You don’t sound hopeful.’

  ‘Time?’ he replied. ‘How does one get at it? What does one do with it? How has she gained access to it?’

  ‘The momentary gods,’ Marianne replied. ‘They’d know. They give time its reality, or so they say. No, that’s not quite it. They give space its reality, and that gives time its reality.’

  Therat stared at her in the glare of the lantern light. ‘You have spoken with momentary gods?’ Therat asked.

  ‘There are five of them with us,’ Marianne began.

  ‘I summoned them,’ said Marianne. ‘It’s something I learned to do from … from Madame, I think. I was in this place, a library, I seem to remember, and she did this thing. Summoned something terrible. All the world was full of snakes, I remember that. And she had this Manticore. She summoned it up, too, from time to time. And she used … used the momentary gods to transport people into her worlds, I remember that. She would reach up and twist the tail of a momentary god, and it would establish a nexus and let someone through. Oh, I do remember that.’