Sheri S. Tepper by Marianne the Magus & the Manticore

Author:Marianne, the Magus & the Manticore [Marianne, the Magus & Manticore, the]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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 dog--

more 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.

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