Singer From the Sea by Sheri S Tepper

Author:Sheri S Tepper [Tepper, Sheri S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Feminism, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781857987492
Amazon: 1857987497
Goodreads: 104349
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 1999-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

18: Nocturne

Night, cool, a small balcony open over the stable yard of a country inn. White curtains streamed into the room, blown by the night wind. The fire in the grate flared up, playing across the rose-brown skin of the woman by the hearth. The figure at the open balcony door closed it once more and resumed his seat by the fire. Aufors, with a worried face.

“So you were held captive by this man for how long?”

“I don't know. There are no nights and days down there. A few days, I suppose.”

“Did he ... hurt you?”

“Of course he hurt me,” she muttered, taking a deep breath. More calmly, she said, “And he humiliated me. I was tied up and not allowed to use a toilet. But he did no lasting damage.”

He nodded heavily, glancing at her lowered face from the corner of his eyes, wanting to ask a more specific question but deciding against it. “And then on the lagoon, there was a being who said you must go with Delganor?”

“If it was actually speaking, that is what I heard, yes.”

“A manlike being.” There was much he wanted to know about this being, but she seemed reluctant to speak of it. He had the feeling that if he pushed the matter, her fragile calm might be totally destroyed.

“Something that came from the sea,” she said fretfully. “I think it had a head and a torso and four limbs, so it may have been manlike. Oh, Aufors, I really don't know!”

“Or maybe . . .” he swallowed deeply, “it was froglike.”

“Frog, toad, monkey, I don't know.” She looked so hag-ridden, so weary, that he turned away to the rumpled bed where they had come together like two comets, driven throughout all the ages of the universe to a fiery, impetuous meeting that should have lit up the skies with its heat. There they had lain until a few moments before, delaying any thought of reality. Now there was too much reality to suit him. He could not bear the thought of her held captive, the thought of her at the bidding of strange forces. He could not bear the thought of the man in the cavern, the manlike thing on the lagoon, both of whom had had her at their mercies. Or lack thereof.

Now he pled, “Marry me, Genevieve.”

She shook her head sadly and said no.

“I must go with Delganor,” she said, several times.

“Have youseen anything to do with Delganor?” He cried, hopelessly.

Genevieve shook her head again. “No. I have seen a city built of mud under a blazing sky. I have seen—or more properly heard—a huge voice crying or singing. I have seen blood on my hands and felt terror. Lyndafal has seen herself lying in the dust while her child is passed from hand to hand.” Though Lyndafal possessed the seeing, sometimes, vaguely, she had not learned from Alicia any of the things that Genevieve had learned from her mother. There had been no cellar-singing in Lyndafal's life, nor any of .

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