The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “When we have had our lunch, you will ride back and I will ride on. Tell Windlow I will repay him for the horse sometime.”

  “Windlow would have given you the horse. Where are you going? Why are you going?”

  “I am going because I do not want this child to be born here, or at Lake Yost, to serve as a halter strap between me and Himaggery. I am going because Himaggery does not see me as I am, and I cannot be what he thinks I am. I am going because there is much distraction here, of a wondrous kind, and I want two years, or three, to give to the child without distractions.

  “As to where. Well. North. Somewhere. I have friends there. I will find Midwives there. And when the time is right, I may see Himaggery again. Windlow now thinks his vision was of a later time. We may yet come together in Pfarb Durim.”

  “What am I to tell them?”

  “That I became restless. That I have gone on a journey. Don’t say much more than that. Himaggery will be quite happy with that. Each day he will think of going off to find me. Each day he will put it off for a while. Each night he will dream romantic dreams of me, and each morning he will resolve again – quite contentedly.

  “Don’t tell him I’m expecting a child. If he knew, he would first have to decide how to feel about it, and then what actions such a feeling should create. Better leave him as he is. After all, the Midwives may not let the child live. So don’t take his smile from him, Throsset. Strangely though I seem to show it, I do love him.”

  They drank the wine. When they had done, Throsset threw the jug against a stone, shattering it into pieces. She wrote her name upon a shard and gave it to Mavin, accepting a similar one in return. So were meetings and partings memorialized among their people, without tears.

  After Mavin rode down into the canyon lands, Throsset sat for a long time staring after her. She was not sad, not gay, not grieving or rejoicing. She went boneless and did the quick wriggle which passed for comment in Danderbat keep; Mavin could not Shift for a time, but she was still Mavin Manyshaped, and Throsset did not doubt she would return.

  “Good chance to you,” she whispered toward the north. “And to your child, Mavin.” Nothing answered but the wind. Putting the shard into her pocket as one of the few things she would always carry, she went to tell them that Mavin Manyshaped had gone.

  Sheri S. Tepper (1929 -)

  Sheri Stewart Tepper was born in Colorado in 1929 and is the author of a larger number of novels in the areas of science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery, and is particularly respected for her works of feminist science fiction. Her many acclaimed novels include The Margarets and Gibbon’s Decline And Fall, both shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, A Plague Of Angels, Sideshow and Beauty, which was voted Best Fantasy Novel Of The Year by readers of Locus magazine. Her versatility is illustrated by the fact that she is one of very few writers to have titles in both the Gollancz SF and Fantasy Masterworks lists. Sheri S. Tepper lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

  Also By Sheri S. Tepper

  Land of The True Game

  1. King’s Blood Four (1983)

  2. Necromancer Nine (1983)

  3. Wizard’s Eleven (1984)

  Marianne

  1. Marianne, the Magus and the Manticore (1985)

  2. Marianne, the Madame and the Momentary Gods (1988)

  3. Marianne, the Matchbox and the Malachite Mouse (1989)

  Mavin Manyshaped

  1. The Song of Mavin Manyshaped (1985)

  2. The Flight of Mavin Manyshaped (1985)

  3. The Search of Mavin Manyshaped (1985)

  Jinian

  1. Jinian Footseer (1985)

  2. Dervish Daughter (1986)

  3. Jinian Star-Eye (1986)

  Ettison

  1. Blood Heritage (1986)

  2. The Bones (1987)

  Awakeners

  1. Northshore (1987)

  2. Southshore (1987)

  Other Novels

  The Revenants (1984)

  After Long Silence (1987)

  The Gate to Women’s Country (1988)

  The Enigma Score (1989)

  Grass (1989)

  Raising the Stones (1990)

  Beauty (1991)

  Sideshow (1992)

  A Plague of Angels (1993)

  Shadow’s End (1994)

  Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (1996)

  The Family Tree (1997)

  Six Moon Dance (1998)

  Singer from the Sea (1999)

  The Fresco (2000)

  The Visitor (2002)

  The Companions (2003)

  The Margarets (2007)

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