The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection by Tepper Sheri S

Author:Tepper, Sheri S. [Tepper, Sheri S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction, Novel, Sci-fi
ISBN: 9780575122512
Publisher: Gateway
Published: 1985-01-28T02:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘I would have thought,’ Haurvatat Zahmani said with an expression of acute annoyance, ‘that your great-aunt would have come back with you.’

‘She…’ Marianne hesitated, wondering just how to say it. ‘I think she felt that if Makr Avehl managed to get us back at all, she had very little to come back for. She said pretty much that to me before I … well, before I left. Evidently while Aghrehond and I were busy with Buttercup, Dagma simply concentrated on where she wanted to go and threw a nine.’

‘At the time,’ said Aghrehond gloomily, ‘I could not recall precisely where a nine might take her. Now, of course, it is obvious that she went to the Illusion Fields…’

‘Or to Mother’s Smithy. Or some other place,’ said Marianne. ‘We really don’t know.’

‘And you think she’s there still?’ Arti wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, whether from joy over Marianne’s return or from sorrow over Dagma, she herself could not have said.

‘I doubt it,’ said Makr Avehl. ‘Haven’t vanished people been showing up in droves? I know Fanetta did, because I called Seattle to find out. Your postman, Arti? I’ll wager he’s back. Your butcher’s wife. The man who sits on that charity board with you? Your neighbor and her children. I imagine all of them are back unless they happened to get into a Forever.’

‘Or,’ said Aghrehond ominously. ‘Or…’

‘Well, yes. Or the ones who were hunted down in Cattermune’s Pique.’

‘Dagma wasn’t hunted down. But she hasn’t come back, either,’ said Arti.

Marianne sighed. ‘Mother, there was one Forever nine squares from Cattermune’s Pique. Not an obvious one, to be sure, but then Dagma seldom did the obvious…’

‘Dagma is not the only one in this family of whom that can be said,’ grumped Haurvatat. ‘And here you are within weeks, within days, of having a baby. What if it had been born there?’

Marianne shuddered delicately. ‘I’d rather not think about that.’

‘I should hope not. Think of something else. Something cheerful. Such as, what are you going to name the baby?’ He looked at her triumphantly, sure, from what he was pleased to think of as his intimate knowledge of feminine psychology, that this subject would drive all others from her mind.

‘Ah,’ sighed Marianne. ‘Well, Daddy, it’s going to be a girl, you know. Makr Avehl and I have considered many names. Family names. Historic names. Old Alphenlichtian names. Kavi names, even. Considering everything – and I do mean everything – I really think there’s only one thing I can call her. It will be my way, at least in part, of making up for a broken promise.’ Her tone was rather stiff as she said this, and she avoided meeting Makr Avehl’s eyes.

He shook his head in dismay. Her bearing, her tone, everything told him he was not going to like what she would say next. He swore silently to himself that he would not say one thing, not one thing.

‘But I’ve never known you to break a promise, Marianne,’ said her mother.

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