The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Mouth open, she stared at him, disbelieving these tumbled words, this babbling nonsense. ‘Who sent you?’ she asked, thinking it was a question she should have asked hours ago.

  ‘Macravail,’ he replied unhesitatingly. ‘The arch mage, Macravail.’

  ‘And who,’ she asked, ‘or what, is he?’

  ‘A kinsman of yours, I think, pretty one. You do not remember him, but then, you do not remember much. One of the laws of this place.’

  ‘Then how do you remember him?’

  ‘Because I am not suffering a malign enchantment and you are. So. Let us think together. You do not know who you are, and neither do I. If Macravail did not send that information with me, we must believe it is for your protection, or mine, or perhaps both. However, I do remember Macravail, and his words to me. “Greendog,” he said, “send me word where I may find you.”’

  ‘Greendog? What kind of a name is that?’

  ‘My name,’ he said doubtfully, ‘or perhaps what he called me at the time. Who knows?’ More cheerfully, ‘Perhaps he made a joke. Whatever. We must figure out a way to send him word.’

  He fell silent for a long time, so long it became uncomfortable and Marianne fidgeted, saying, ‘What else?’

  He shook his head. ‘I was thinking there is very little else.’

  ‘Didn’t this Macravail give you instructions?’

  ‘To find you, Marianne. “Find Marianne,” he said. The rest he left to my native cunning and natural self-effacement.’

  She sighed. It was evident there was no quick, sweet-hot solution. There was only tedium and talk, fear and what courage one could bring to it. So. If that was the way it was, then that was the way it must be.

  ‘Well, if you have nothing to tell me, I do have something to tell you,’ she said and she told him about the peerers-in, the stolen books, the burned book, the visit to the library of the woman in black. ‘I don’t know what it all means,’ she confessed, ‘what it meant when I put the book out the coal chute. Do you have any idea?’

  He nodded, nodded, chewing his pursed lips in concentration. ‘Oh, yes, pretty lady. For everyone in this city there is a book. There is a book in that place for you, and for me, and for Helen, your boss, and for everyone. We are bound to our books. And when you put the book outside and it was burned, then someone escaped from this city. That is why they cheered. But there was only one book, only one. That is why they despaired. But listen, there is more.

  ‘Here in the city, the Manticore. There in the library, books. And as the Manticore chases our images onto the walls of the city, I think the books grow dim and faded and we grow dim and thin and shadowy as well, until they cannot be read any longer. What does one do with them then?’

  ‘With the old, faded books? They are taken to the sub-basements and stacked there. Room after room of them. Huge, mountainous piles of them.’

  He nodded somberly. ‘And no chance then of escape. Only to fall into slow rot, to disappear into dust over an eternity of storage.’ Sadly shaking his head, sighing. ‘We will not consider that. No. Before that time is near, we will have found a way to send for Macravail, or he will have found a way to us. That is why we have our books, of course, yours and mine.’

  ‘We have them?’

  ‘Surely. You brought them. They are here. Was not your own story in the book?’

  ‘But there were thousands of others, too, more stories than I could count…’

  ‘Well. Yes. Most of our books have others’ stories in them, though we are often unaware of that. It is no matter, pretty lady. You have your book and you must read in it again, to find what we must do next.’

  ‘My story again?’

  ‘Is it not your story we seek to unravel? Your story, of course.’

  So she sat down away from the window in order not to be distracted by the recurrent return of the Manticore, by the continuing flight of the paper figures, the mirage-like wavering of the street, to read her own story, beginning with ‘…She found herself walking through a neighborhood where narrow-fronted houses stared nearsightedly at her over high stoops and scraps of entry way relieved only by tattered yews…’ and ending with ‘Is it not your story we seek to unravel? Your story, of course.’ It was all as familiar to her as ten minutes ago. Even the picture was of her in her bright scarf, cape around her shoulders, clutching the books to her chest as she fled past the corner taxidermy shop where the Manticore raged in the window. ‘I shall read it again,’ she said in a tired voice, ‘and again, and again.’

  She did not relish reading the story a dozen times, as she had had to do before, but she began without a murmur while Grassi brought her bread and cheese and tea. It did not take as long this time as she had expected.

  ‘Here,’ she said to him. ‘I think this may be it: “That evening there was a tap on the window, and she looked out half fearfully to see a black, hunched form against the glass and knew it for that persistent follower who had come after her from the library. The watcher tapped on the window… Almost fearfully she went to the window to see a message thrust against the glass. Not all who are here are Manticore meat! Will you join us? She wrote upon a napkin the word perhaps and held it to the pane. This seemed to satisfy him, for he scribbled I’ll come back another time…”’

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘A kind of underground, perhaps?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Against what? Who?’

  She shrugged. ‘Against whoever runs things, manages the library, keeps the books. If someone escaped – that’s the word you used – then it means people are being kept here, imprisoned here. And someone is opposed to it, some resistance movement.’

  ‘How effective, I wonder?’

  ‘Who knows? It is at least something. I’ll put a note in the window of the restaurant when I get back. Helen won’t mind as long as it isn’t conspicuous.’

  ‘And I,’ he said, doing a little dance step on the carpet, twirling and bowing to himself, ‘I must continue the minuet, the slow dance of finding out. Bow, advance, bow, retreat. Slow and easy, so they don’t catch me.’

  ‘Whoever they are.’ She laughed, a weary laugh echoed from the street where the Manticore raged past as evening fell. ‘Find out who that woman is who came to the library, Mr Grassi. If we find out who she is, it may tell me who I am.’

  He shook his head at her, tongue protruding between his teeth. ‘I won’t spend time doing that, pretty lady. No. I will do what Macravail told me to do – send him a message. He will come like the wind, like a storm, if only we can figure out how to tell him where we are…’

  ‘I hope you will be able to do that soon,’ she comforted him, privately thinking that it sounded no less mad than anything else in the place. ‘But just in case no one can save us from outside, we must try to figure out how to save ourselves.’ When he reached to pat her shoulder, she patted his in return. ‘It’s all right. I’ll be careful.’

  They watched together until the Manticore returned to its window and people appeared on the streets once more, few and furtive, but moving about nonetheless. Then she left him to return to her work, wondering as the wind blew sharp bits of cinder into her eyes whether it was truly enchantment or dream or a horrible reality from which there would never be any escape.

  Makr Avehl had been on the phone for half an hour, speaking first to someone calling via satellite, an enigmatic conversation which involved much note-taking and short, monosyllabic questions. The later calls were to the people he had sent to Boston, and when he had finished them all he merely sat where he was, staring at the carpet between his feet. After twenty minutes of this, Ellat cleared her throat to attract his attention. They had spent two days in this sitting about. He had not left Marianne’s apartment even for a moment.

  ‘What word?’ she asked.

  ‘Harvey Zahmani is not in Boston. No one knows where he is. He did not announce his departure, which he usually does if he is going on some expedition. Besides, he’s suppo
sed to be teaching, and he hasn’t shown up since last week.’

  ‘So you think—’

  ‘I think he went after her, after Marianne. Or, probably, she drew him into the world to which she has gone. Actually, that’s much more likely. He would be no more able than I to find her, so she must have drawn him in.’

  ‘Why? Fearful of him as she was?’

  ‘Because when we are in our own dream worlds, we people them with others who are important to us, whether we love or hate them. Her world would have Harvey in it, because he tied himself to her in some way so that she could not or would not simply dismiss him.’

  ‘But you are not tied to her? Not with her?’

  ‘Oh, Ellat. I know it. I wasn’t important enough to her, though I much longed to be.’

  ‘She liked you.’

  ‘She liked most people. She liked Mrs Winesap, downstairs, and Mr Larken, and the people in the library. But they weren’t important to her. No. Likely they are not in her world either. But I have to find a way to get there, wherever she is.’

  ‘If you go into her world, Makr Avehl, won’t it have to be in the form which she assigns you? As she sees you or thinks of you? Are you prepared for that?’

  The face he turned to her was blank with surprise. He had obviously not thought of it, or had thought of it and refused to consider it further. He started to shake his head impatiently, but she stopped him with a gesture. ‘No, Makr Avehl. Think. I twitted you down at Wanderly, twitted you with lecturing at the girl rather than talking with her. If you had talked with her, you would not have risked her life as it has been risked. I told her that such pontificating was your way, and she said she didn’t mind, that she found you interesting. So she is good-natured. We both know that. But you know nothing about her. Suppose – oh, take an impossible example – suppose she sees you as some monster? If you follow her into her world, it will be as that monster. I know that’s not possible, but…’ Her voice trailed away at seeing the expression on his face.

  Makr Avehl was remembering Marianne’s hand recoiling from his own, her face knitted up in that expression of unwilling revulsion. Ellat, seeing him stricken, took his limp hands in her own. ‘Tell me. Did I hit upon an unwelcome truth? Makr Avehl, tell me! You need my help.’

  ‘You hit upon something, Sister. Something. I – I offered to stay with her Sunday night. I was afraid of her being alone. I meant nothing at all improper, nothing lubricious. I thought, after all, that she is an American girl, in her twenties, not some adolescent daughter of Third World aristocrats who has had virginity developed into an art form. I offered to stay with her, meaning nothing dishonorable, and she recoiled from me as though I had been a serpent. She said something – what was it? Something about not being like that, and then she muttered under her breath “begone, burned, buried” – an invocation or curse. I was so surprised I could say nothing. I apologized. I left her. Zurvan knows how she sees me. If you had not reminded me of that instance, I would have thought she regarded me well enough.’

  ‘It might not have been you at all,’ said Ellat comfortingly. ‘It might have been a conditioned thing, her usual response to any thought of intimacy. In which case, since we have met her brother, perhaps we can guess? I can guess. You are perhaps too nice-minded.’

  ‘Her half brother? Do you mean that she—?’

  ‘I mean that he probably tried something with her when she was quite young, and by “quite young” I mean emotionally, not necessarily in years. She is still “quite young” in many ways. It would explain much. It would explain her attitude toward your offer to stay with her. You do look like him.’

  ‘What do you mean, “tried something”? Do you mean to tell me that he tried to force her? Or did force her?’

  ‘Possibly. It would explain many things about her. And since he is the kind of man he is, he probably followed the failure or success of his attempt with an equally forceful attempt to make her feel responsible for it. She is carrying some burden regarding him, Makr Avehl, and I wish that Zurvan had prompted you to pay attention to her instead of to the impression you were making.’

  ‘You’re brutal, Ellat.’

  ‘Only occasionally,’ she said with a fond embrace of his shoulders. ‘Only when I am distressed beyond measure. Now, what did the Kavi say?’

  ‘I asked them to read the Cave for me, as you know. I asked for three readings. Cyram did one, Nalavi did one, and the third was by that young cousin of Cyram’s, the one with the scary eyes…’

  ‘Therat. She doesn’t have scary eyes. She’s a bit intense.’

  ‘She has eyes like a hawk protecting its nest, ready to tear out your gizzard. Oh, God, Ellat, what difference what kind of eyes she has? They took the readings. I asked for guidance to Marianne. That’s all. Aghrehond will be helping all he can, concentrating, fishing about and stirring up the waters. Well…’

  ‘So. The message?’

  ‘Books and what Cyram describes as “a paper person.” Nalavi saw a building, and a city. The young one—’

  ‘Therat.’

  ‘Therat saw a Manticore. Nothing else; just a Manticore.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was a Manticore in the Cave.’

  ‘Neither did anyone else. It’s there. Carved in the seventh or eighth century, Cyram thinks, near the floor, half hidden behind a stalagmite. The light fell on it clean and clear, Therat said, but he didn’t believe her until he took a lantern in there and looked for it. It wasn’t even in the lectionary.’

  ‘Without the lectionary…’

  ‘Anybody’s guess. No history of lessons. No previous citations. No precedents. Cyram says that the girl—’

  ‘Therat,’ she said patiently.

  ‘Therat. Cyram says that she feels it means just what it is. A Manticore. Oh, one more thing. Cyram also saw an onion.’ He laughed with amusement. ‘Of course, I have a lectionary with me and I’ll start by looking up the references that are in it.’

  ‘Makr,’ she said, eyes half shut as she stared at the street light glow through the hazy curtains. ‘Makr. It makes me think of something. Paper people, and onions. A thing she said. What was it? Shhh, now, let me think.’ And she leaned her head in her hands rocking to and fro while the wind moved the branches on the curtain, changing their shadow pattern with each flicker. ‘Something she said about peeling away … being peeled away … about Harvey doing that to her – peeling her away…’

  ‘Like a snake shedding its skin?’ he whispered. ‘Papery skin, peeling away? Like that?’

  ‘Think,’ she said in a vague voice. ‘Of onions, one layer inside another, inside another, all the way to the heart of it and nothingness. She said Harvey made her feel that way. Flayed. Skinned. Perhaps an onion is not a bad symbol for that.’

  ‘Books?’ he asked. ‘Books. A building. A city.’

  ‘Books and a building. She worked in a library, Makr Avehl, you told me that yourself. Think! You don’t know her well enough, that’s all. You should have listened to her. You should have stopped talking and listened to her.’

  He knelt on the floor before her and bowed his head into her lap. ‘Beat me, Ellat. Beat me as you did when I was five and tried to drown the white cat. Beat me, but then forgive me and help me. I’m a beast, but forgive me.’

  She shook her head. ‘A library, Makr Avehl. People being peeled like onions. A Manticore. A Manticore is a monster. That’s all. Look in the lectionary, if you like, but it will not tell you more than that. To learn more than that, you must look at this place and listen to it as you did not listen to her.’

  He began to walk around the room, laying his hands on the walls, on the windowsills, on the satiny surfaces of the refinished furniture, on the shelves, the countertops, the carefully laid tiles. He began to breathe in the scent of the place, to inhale it, the mixture of lemon oil and pot pourri and the fragile smell of Marianne herself, faintly spicy, faintly musky. He began to see the colors, each on each and together, until he knew her thought and
intention as she had put each thing in its place, each brushstroke on each surface. He felt the texture of the fabric on the chairs, the dry whiskery push of it into his palm, like a cat’s face. He turned on the lamp, noticed the way the light lay on the wood, on the paint, on the fabric. ‘She lay on the bed in there,’ he whispered. ‘She saw it just like this, this corner.’ He went into the bedroom, lay down on the bed, turned until he saw it as he knew she had seen it, the blanket warm and soft beneath his cheek. Under the lamplight the happy frog he had brought her glowed quietly.

  What kind of world would one like this carry in her soul? What would its geography be, its climate and culture? He lay quietly, letting what he knew of her possess him until it became more real than himself. Where? Where? Where?

  Ellat came to the door of the room. ‘Makr Avehl. Remember, in her world you may not have a form or presence which will please you. Remember, it may not be of her own doing. It may be merely something old and wounding which will not let her see you as you are.’

  ‘I know, Ellat,’ he said. ‘If anyone can be prepared, I am prepared. Wait here for me.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said. ‘Of course I will wait for you.’