Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore by Sheri S. Tepper

Author:Sheri S. Tepper [Tepper, Sheri S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction, zz
ISBN: 9780441519453
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1985-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Marianne’s desk was on an upper level of the library as were those of the assistant librarians, but not, as theirs were, upon the balcony itself. There a contentious writhing of brass made a lacoonish barrier between the desks and the gloomy gulf of air extending more than four stories from the intricate mosaics of the lobby floor to the green skylight far above. Marianne’s space was sequestered in a trough of subaqueous shadow at the deep end of an aisle of shelves, the only natural light leaking grudgingly upon her from between splintered louvers of the curved window set some distance above her head. This eye-shaped orifice looked neither in nor out, but Marianne often glanced up at it in the fancy it had just blinked to let in some tantalizing glimmer from outside. To this wholly inadequate illumination she had added a lamp discovered in one of the vacant basement rooms, a composition of leaden lavender and grayed green in the form of an imaginative flower. Such light as it allowed to escape outward was livid and inauspicious, but that which fell on the desk top puddled a welcoming amber reminiscent of hearth fires or brick kilns, comforting and industrious. By this liquid glow she found her way to and from her desk at night when all the balcony was dark, the aisles of books blacker tunnels yet, and the only movement except for her own the evanescent ghosts reflected through the wide glass doors from the windshields of passing cars.

After making an effort to leave the library every night for some little time, she had resolved not to try to leave for a while. The attempts had become increasingly frustrating, and she felt it might be easier to give up the effort, at least temporarily. She resolved to accept the necessity of washing out her underwear and collar in the staff washroom. She made a brief prayer of thanks that her appetite had never been large and was now easily placated by a few of the stale biscuits kept in the staff tea room. These biscuits never seemed to grow more or less stale, and their quantity remained constant in the slant-topped jar. When the jar was turned in a certain fashion, the tin lid caught light falling from street lamps through the high window to reflect it upon the dusty couch where she slept.

During the first several evenings, Marianne had turned on the lights in the basement room, flooding it with a harsh, uncompromising emptiness more threatening than the dark. The light brought persons to gather mothlike at the window where they crouched on the ground to peer down at her and whisper of books; the stealing of books, the destruction of books. When she turned off the lights, they went away, or so she thought, for the whispers ended and no shadows moved at the barred window. Thereafter, she used the lights only in the washroom, which had no windows, or upon her desk, so deeply hidden among the corridors of volumes that no ray could have betrayed her to watchers.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.