Sheri Tepper

by Marianne, The Magus

  Ellat, watching, saw him sink into trance, fade before her eyes into an effigy, lifeless as stone, betrayed only by the shallow, infrequent breaths which misted the mirror she held before his lips. A grunt from the doorway made her turn.

  Aghrehond stood there, eyes wide, mouth open, panting as though he had run for miles. "I will go with him," he said.

  "Hondi. He did not ask-"

  "Ellat, he does not ask. I will go with him. He may need someone. He may need someone to stay in there when he comes back, for he cannot stay. That is what she wants, that

  Lubovoskan. She wants him lost in the false worlds, but he is too wise for that. I will go. Shush now." And he went back into the living room to lie down there, hands folded on his chest, sinking at once into a sleep both as profound and as disturbing as that which held Makr Avehl.

  Deep into the night the light glowed in the upper window as Ellat's figure passed and passed again and the search went on.

  MARIANNE, LIKE THE others in the pensione, made daily visits to the embassy. It was only a short walk, through the carnival ground and the phantom zoo, along the city wall to the Gates of Darius-not cleaned yet, though the scaffolding had been rigged against the ruddy stones for several seasons, and teams of dwarves were brought in from time to time to swarm up the ladders and peck away at the archway-then onto the Avenue of Lanterns. She thought that they must keep changing the avenue. When she had first visited the embassy, she remembered the avenue as quite broad and straight, the lanterns honest constructions of amber glass and bronze. Now the way curved to make room for the new tiled pool they were building, and the lights had been replaced with scattered braziers which left much of the roadway in darkness, the footing treacherous among chips of marble, chisels, mallets, and discarded cola cans the masons had left. Of course, reaching the embassy in the moming light was only a matter of watching one's step, but the return always seemed to occur after darkness had fallen, which made the return trip difficult though not, Marianne reminded herself constantly, impossible. Marianne went to the embassy at least every other day, religiously, in the constant hope that some message would have arrived concerning her, or some quota would have been changed to allow her an exit visa.

  Everyone at the pensione, of course, existed in the same hope.

  The woman who could have come from Lubovosk had pointed out, with laughter, what a vain hope that was. "Those of us from Lubovosk already have our visas," she had said, fixing

  Marianne with her cold, imperious eye in which that taint of mad laughter always hung like a pale moon over a cemetery.

  "Those of us who know the rales know the way. Those of us in favor with the ambassador. You, on the other hand, are unlikely to receive permission to leave. You are obviously a native, a borderlander." The way she said it was a venomous revelation to Marianne, a metempiric bombshell which seemed to make the matter certain forever. Of course they would not help her at the embassy. Of course the quota would not include her. Of course they would be moved to neither pity nor mercy.

  Not for a borderlander, a creature of quiet-gray, still-dun ghostness.

  She had thought to apologize to the woman who could have come from Lubovosk, but the words caught in her throat, so she had put her glass of Madeira on the harpsichord (worrying later that it might have left a ring) and let herself out of the crowded apartment. Behind her the surf of conversation ebbed and flowed, falling into silence as she climbed the echoing stairs to her own room. It had been a mistake to go to the reception. Probably they had meant to invite someone else, and the invitation had been put under her door by mistake.

  Her room was cold, the dirty casements opened wide to a view of the nearer roofs and the farther towers. Sun lay upon the streets, rare as laughter, enough to start a ridiculous upwelling of hope, like a seeping spring under ashes. She snatched up her coat to drag it over her arms as she ran down the clattering stairs of the pensione, past the landing where they had found the old man dead, his pockets stuffed with appeals to the ambassador, past the room where the woman who could have come from Lubovosk and her guests still talked, into the frigid entrance hall with its lofty ceiling and frosty mirrors, and out into the bright, dusty streets where the children from everywhere gathered to play. She wondered, as she had before, why they gathered in this street rather than some other. They broke before her like drops of mercury, only to flow together behind her and go on with their games, a fevered intensity of play. She could feel their impatience, their hot ardor, sizzling in the dust.

  She wondered which of them, if any of them, had been born here in the borderland? Surely none. No one remembered being born here. There were no natives to this place, despite what the woman who could have come from Lubovosk had said.

  They had come, all of them, as Marianne had come, interlopers, strangers, unacclimatized to this place or this time. Marianne knew there must have been somewhere else. "Cibola," she chanted to herself. "Rhees. New York. Camelot. Broceliande.

  Persepolis. Alphenlicht." All of these were places beyond the border. "I could have come from there," she whispered rebelliously. "I could. I know I could."

  Hands thrust deep into her pockets, she started down toward the river wharves, toward a place full of light and the complaint of gulls. If the sun were an omen, if hope were not dead, if there were still reason to go on-well, then Macravail might be there. Perhaps they would go to the phantom zoo, feed dream shreds to the tame ghosts. Perhaps he would give her another present from the flea market, perhaps a book with stories about other places. Perhaps he would not. One never knew with Macravail.

  She found him sitting, as he often did, upon a bollard, perched like some ungainly bird, thin to the point of ropiness, every corner of him busy with bones. She gentle-voiced him, knowing his horror of shrillness, and he turned in one flowing motion to stare at her from huge, lightless eyes which seemed to see only shadows where she saw light and light where she saw shadows. "Marianne," his voice caressed her.

  "Will you share my sun?"

  The question she answered was not the one he had just asked. Squatting beside him on the wharf, she said, "I don't think I'll go to the embassy anymore." He had suggested to her again and again that it was a waste of time, gently, persistently. "I keep thinking of the old man."

  "What old man was that?"

  "The old man who died in the place I live. He'd been going to the embassy forever. He never got out. The woman from

  Lubovosk says I'll never get out."

  "But she urges you to go to the embassy."

  "Yes." Marianne was unable to consider the fundamental dilemma this implied. It was true. The woman who could have come from Lubovosk urged everyone to go to the embassy.

  Always. The thought led her into a gray, fuzzy area which itched at the edges and hurt in the middle. She could not think of it, even though she knew Macravail would be disappointed.

  She changed the subject. "Did you take your dog to the witch wife?"

  "It did no good at all." Macravail's voice was grave and sorrowful, the edges of his mouth under the white moustache turned down. "I thought at first it had helped. For a time he seemed better, and we even walked to Leather Street and bought a new leash, but last night while we slept all his hair fell out.

  He is bald now, like a wineskin." He pointed to the shadows where a bloated shape murfled to itself, shiny and hard as a soccer ball.

  Marianne sighed. They had spent half their substance for several seasons-surely it had been several seasons-on

  Macravail's dog, yet the poor beast seemed no better. She could not bear to see Macravail grieve over him. "Why don't we plant on him?" she suggested desperately. "Mixed grasses. We'll tie the seeds on with gauze and water him night and morning."

  So that is what they did that day while the sun dribbled into the streets in shiny puddles and processions wound about on the city walls and heralds rode toward the gates making brassy sounds of challenge. When they had planted Macravail's dogmore complicated than she
had thought it would be, for the gauze tended to slip-they went to the phantom zoo, but it was too late to feed the ghosts and they ended up eating the dream shreds themselves.

  When he left her at the door, he reminded her of the morning's resolution. "You promised not to consent to go to the embassy anymore." She asked him why he cared, knowing he could not, or would not, tell her. He did not, merely sniffed remotely and chewed on the corners of his moustache while the dog snuffled wearily at the end of the gilded leash. "I hope your dog will grow grass, Macravail," she wished him at last.

  He had forbidden her to say goodbye to him, which made leavetaking somewhat tenuous. She was never quite sure when he would go or if he would go at all. When she laid her hand upon the doorlatch, however, he went away, leaving her to climb the four long flights to the cold room and the sagging bed. Evidently the reception was long over, for no sounds came from the woman's apartment. Sometimes Marianne did not see her for days, many long days, and she felt somehow that the woman had somewhere else to go from time to time, unlike the rest of them.

  The next morning, however, it was the woman from

  Lubovosk who woke her, tapping on the door, calling, "Marianne, get up, get dressed. They're doing something new at the embassy today." Marianne almost refused to answer, almost kept her word to Macravail, but then decided that any hope was better than none. She agreed to go with them after breakfast, remembering from some misty past a voice telling her she was contrary-or was it to be contrary?-asserting her independence by refusing to hurry from the dining room even though the others were shifting impatiently in the hall. The red-faced woman was there, and the two sons of the duchess. The little old woman who swept the hallways was with them as well, her eyes frightened and soft beneath the swath of veiling on her hat. Marianne had never seen her in anything but apron and dusty skirt, a tattered shawl around her shoulders, but today she wore mittens and carried a parasol above the silly hat.

  "It's a pretty parasol," offered Marianne, sorry now to have kept the old thing waiting,

  "Everyone ought to have something," the old woman said.

  "Don't you think so?"

  The five of them moved off under the sardonic gaze of the woman who could have come from Lubovosk. Marianne expected to hear her laugh behind them at any moment, almost as though she remembered the laughter. When she looked back from the edge of the carnival ground, however, the woman was gone. In the zoo the phantoms moved restlessly in their cages, but only Marianne glanced at the spectral arms thrust through the bars, begging for food. The twin sons of the duchess strode along side by side, their arms around one another's waists to hide the fact they were joined at the lower body. When they arrived at the embassy, a fussy clerk sent them all to various rooms and told them to wait. Marianne sat in the empty office, listening to the hopelessly frustrated buzzing of a fly against the gray glass, dirty from a hundred rains and a hundred dust storms, admitting light only through the accidental fact that the filth was not perfectly evenly distributed. Outside lay the famed gardens of the ambassador, but Marianne could not see them.

  A very long time went by before one of the consular staff entered the room, a bundle of forms under one arm, to sit at the desk and begin the questions. The woman from Lubovosk had been right. The procedure was different, and yet Marianne had a feeling of horrid familiarity, as though in some other place or time she had experienced it all before.

  "Have you ever healed warts?"

  Marianne could not remember having done so. "I don't think so," she replied, trying to keep her voice interested but unemotional. One never knew. Perhaps the tone of voice one used would make a difference.

  "Have you ever visited the Cave of Light or any similar tourist attraction?"

  "No. I'm sure I haven't. Should I have?"

  The person stared at her coldly. "It isn't a question of should.

  It's a question of the quota being changed-definitions.

  Regulations. You know. The new system will make all that possible.

  Now. Do the following mean anything to you at all? Stop me if they do. Shamans? The onocratic dyad? The Cave of Light?"

  There was an invitational pause, but it meant nothing to

  Marianne. "Banshees? Sybils? Crabbigreen? Ah, that strikes a chord, does it?"

  Marianne thought it had something to Jo with lawns, but she wasn't sure. Still, the person nodded encouragingly and continued with the list. "Ethnography? Harvey? Lubovosk?"

  "Yes," Marianne said into the silence. "There's a woman in my pensione from there."

  "Tell me what you know about it," he said, silky-voiced, all at once very interested.

  "She's from there. You'd have to ask her. I don't know anything about it at all."

  "Umm. Let's see. That's schedule 42-A. Ah, here it is.

  Now, this will be a little different. You just tell me what comes to mind when I say each word. Drat. This pen is out of ink.

  Wait a bit. I'll be right back...." The person left the room, the door shutting behind with a swish full of finality and finish, the sound a branch makes falling from the top of a tree, falling, falling, then done, not to fall anymore because it has reached the place beneath which there is no more down at all.

  "Swish," said Marianne to herself sadly. She did not expect the person to return. The little light which had come through the dirty glass was already fading. Time in the embassy was different from time on the outside. It was almost night, and outside in the hall the little old woman had set her parasol against the wall and was busy sweeping the floors.

  "I thought, since I was here already..." the woman began.

  "We might as well go on back," said Marianne. "Perhaps we'll come again tomorrow."

  Macravail was waiting for her in the street, ropy arms folded across his narrow chest, mouth puckered in reproach. "I thought you weren't coming here anymore." She stared at her feet, unable to answer him. "The seeds sprouted," he said, pointing at the end of the leash where a fuzzy, green ball clicked along on short legs, beady eyes peering at her from beneath grassy ears. The dog barked, a husky, friendly, convalescent sound.

  "I'm glad, Macravail. It makes him look so much more comfortable. I'm sure he feels better."

  "I thought we'd take him to the fountain," said Macravail.

  "He needs watering. Then we could buy some fruit jellies and watch the fireworks,"

  Marianne could not help the slow tears which began to well from her eyes, the harsh lump which choked her. Under the curious eyes of the little old woman, she wept noisily.

  Macravail made no effort to comfort her, merely chewed the ends of his moustache and spoke soothing words to the dog.

  "What's it all for?" she cried. "What good is it all? We'll eat fruit jellies and watch fireworks and tomorrow it will all be the same. The embassy will change procedures again, but they still won't give me a visa. I'll grow old here, and die, and then they'll put me in the phantom zoo with the other ghosts, and I'll be hungry all the time. Oh, Macravail, I just want out..."

  The little old woman turned pale at this and tottered away, tap-tapping with her parasol. Marianne fumbled through her coat pocket to find some tissues, a little sticky and shredded, but whole enough to dry her eyes and stop her dripping nose.

  When she came to herself again, the old woman was gone, and Macravail was crouched against the curbing as the grassy dog peed against the lamppost.

  "If you'll stop going to the embassy," he whispered, "I can get you out. Without a visa. If you really want to get out."

  "You can? Why haven't you said anything before? You know

  I want out. More than anything."

  "People say that," he went on whispering, "when they don't really mean it. The little old woman who was just here, she'd say it, but she'd be terrified of it. Here is familiar, always changing, but familiar. Here is almost forever. Here is custom and endless circles turning. Here is nothing truly strange. There is nothing here but what is here, Marianne, and the only way out is ou
t, no guarantees, no safety. Some are better off here,

  Marianne."

  "How can you say that? Nothing ever happens here! Nothing ever changes!"

  "New fountains along the avenue. New carvings on the gate."

  "But as soon as they're finished, they'll change it again.

  They do that. Everything is always changed, but nothing is ever different. I want it to be different. I want you to get me out.""If you really want to," he said with an intensity she had not heard from him before, "I can't advise it, or urge it. It has to be your decision."

  "I want to," she said firmly, thrusting the soggy tissues back into her pocket. "I want to. What do I have to do?"

  "Just tell me where you want to go. That's all. You tell me, and I'll take you there."