DURING THE NIGHT, Marianne was awakened by a steady drum-

 ming of rain, a muffled tattoo as from a thousand drumsticks

 on the flat porch roof, a splash and gurgle from the rainspout

 at the corner of the house outside Mrs. Winesap's window,

 bubbling its music in vain to ears which did not hear. "I hear,"

 whispered Marianne, speaking to the night, the rain, the comer

 of the living room she could see from her bed. When she lay

 just so, the blanket drawn across her lips, the pillow crunched

 into an exact shape, she could see the amber glow of a lamp

 in the living room left on to light one corner of the reupholstered

 couch, the sheen of the carefully carpentered shelves above it,

 the responsive glow of the refinished table below, all in a kindly

 shine and haze of belonging there. "Mine," said Marianne to

 the room. The lamplight fell on the first corner of the apartment

 to be fully finished, and she left the light on so that she could

 see it if she woke, a reminder of what was possible, a promise

 that all the rooms would be reclaimed from dust and dilapi-

 dation. Soon the kitchen would be finished. Two more weeks

 at the extra work she was doing for the library and she'd have

 enough money for the bright Mexican tiles she had set her heart

 upon.

  

   "Mine," she said again, shutting her eyes firmly against the

 seductive glow. She had spent all Cloud-haired mama's jewelry

 on the house. The lower floor, more recently occupied and in

 a better state of repair, was rented out to Mrs. Winesap and

 Mr. Larken-whose relationship Marianne often speculated

 upon, varyingly, as open windows admitted sounds of argument

 or expostulation or as the walls transmitted the unmistakable

 rhythm of bedsprings-and the shimmy part was occupied by

 Marianne herself. "Not so slummy anymore," she hummed to

 herself in the darkness. "Not so damn slummy."

   If she had been asked, she could not have said why it had

 been so important to have rooms of her own, rooms with softly

 glowing floorboards, rooms with carefully stripped woodwork

 painted a little darker than the walls, all in a mauvey, sunset

 glow, cool and spacious as a view of distant mountains, where

 there had been only cracked, stained plaster with bits of horse-

 hair protruding from it to make her think for weary months

 that she was trying to make a home in the corpse of some great,

 defunct animal. At the time she had not known about old

 plaster, old stairs, old walls, nothing about splintered wood-

 work and senile plumbing-either balky or incontinent. Some-

 thing in the old house had nagged at her. "Buy me, lady. You're

 poor. I'm poor. Buy me, and let us live together."

   Perhaps it had been the grace of the curved, beveled glass

 lights above the front door and the upstairs windows. Perhaps

 it had been the high ceilings, cracked though they were, and

 the gentle slope of the banisters leading to the second floor.

 Perhaps the dim, cavelike mystery of the third floor beneath

 the flat roof. Perhaps even the arch of branches in the tangled

 shrubbery which spoke of old, flowering things needing to be

 rescued from formlessness and thistle. "Sleeping Beauty," she

 had said more than once. "A hundred years asleep." Though

 it hadn't been a hundred years. Ten or fifteen, perhaps, since

 someone had put a new roof on it. Forty, perhaps, since anyone

 had painted or repaired otherwise. Both times someone, anyone

 had run out of money, or time, or interest, and had given up

 to let it stand half vacant, occupied on the lower floor by a

 succession of recluses who had let the vines cover the windows

 and the shrubs grow into a thicket.

   Perhaps it hadn't been anything unique in this particular

  

 house except that it stood only a block from the campus. From

 her windows she could look across the lawns of the university

 to the avenue, across acres of orderly green setting off rose-

 ash walls of Georgian brick, a place of quiet and haven among

 the hard streets. "Damn Harvey," she hummed to herself, mov-

 ing toward sleep. This was part of the daily litany: at least a

 decade of "mine's" and five or six "damn Harvey's."

   It shouldn't have been necessary to sell all Mama's jewelry.

 Harvey could have advanced her some of her own inheritance-

 even loaned it to her at interest. The past two years of niggling

 economies, the endless hours using the heat gun to strip paint

 until her ears rang with the howl of it and her hands turned

 numb.... "Carpal tunnel syndrome," the doctor had said. "Quit

 whatever your're doing with your hands and the swelling will

 stop. With what your papa left you, sweetie, what's this passion

 for doing your own carpentry?" Dr. Brown was an old friend-

 well, an old acquaintance-who believed his white hair gave

 him license to call her sweetie. Maybe he called all the people

 he had once delivered as babies sweetie, no matter how old

 they got, but the familiar, almost contemptuous way he said it

 didn't tempt her to explain.

   "Look," she could have said. "Papa Zahmani was pure, old-

 country macho to the tips of his toes. He didn't leave his little

 girl anything. He left it all in half-brother Harvey's hands until

 little Marianne either gets married-in which case presumably

 her sensible husband will take care of it for her-or gets to be

 thirty years old. I guess he figured if Marianne wasn't safely

 married by thirty, she never would be and it would be safe to

 let such a hardened spinster handle her own affairs. Until men,

 however, Harvey controls the lot-half-brother Harvey who

 treats every dime of Marianne's money as though it were a

 drop of his own blood."

   Anyhow, why explain? It wouldn't change anything. The

 truth was simply that she hadn't the money to pay anyone to

 paint the walls or strip the woodwork or reupholster the fur-

 niture scrounged from secondhand shops. "Junk shops," she

 reminded herself. "Not so damn junky anymore...."

   "You can live on what I allow you," Harvey had said, off-

 handedly. "If you get a cheap room somewhere. There's no

 earthly reason for you to go on to school. You are by no stretch

  

 of the imagination a serious student, and if you're determined

 to live the academic life-well, you'll have to work your way

 through. If you're determined to get a graduate degree-which

 will be useless to you-you'll spend most of your time on

 campus anyhow. You don't need a nice place to live. A little

 student squalor goes with the academic ambience."

   Not that Harvey exposed himself to squalor of any kind.

 His six-room Boston apartment took up half the upper floor of

 a mellow old brownstone on Beacon Hill, and an endless skein

 of nubile, saponaceous Melissas and Randis and Cheryls re-

 placed one another at eager intervals as unpaid housekeepers,

 cooks, and laundresses for Harvey S. Zahmani, professor of

 Oriental languages and sometime ethnologist, who had had the

 use of all his own inheritance and all of Marianne's since he

 was twenty-six. Papa hadn't believed that women should take

 up space in universities unless they "had to work," a fate ev-

 idently worse than death and far, far worse than an unhappy

 marriage. "I do have to work," Marianne had said to Harvey

 more than once. "Do you really expect me to live on $500 a

 month? Come on, Harvey, that's poverty level minus and you

 know it."

   "It's what Papa would have done." Bland, smiling, knowing

 she knew he didn't give a damn what Papa would have done,

 that he hadn't cared for Papa or Papa's opinions at all, giving

 her that twinge deep down in her stomach that said "no fury

 like a man scorned," and a kind of fear, too, that the man

 scorned would try something worse to get even.

   "Hell, Harvey," she whispered to herself. "I was only thir-

 teen and you were twenty-six. I don't care if you were drunk.

 You're my half-brother, for God's sake. What did you expect

 me to do, just lie there and let you use me for one of your

 Randis or Cheryls because I was convenient?" It had been a

 frightening scene, interrupted by the housekeeper. Neither of

 them had referred to it since, but Marianne remembered, and

 she thought Harvey did, too. Why else this nagging enmity,

 this procession of little annoyances?

   "You give up this graduate degree business and do something

 more in keeping with your position, and I'll see about increasing

 your allowance...." He had sneered that polite, academic sneer,

 which could only remotely be interpreted as a threat. Marianne

  

 hadn't been able to figure out what would have been more in

 keeping with her position. What position did a poverty-stricken

 heiress have? Great expectations? She had on occasion thought

 of raffling herself off on the basis of her Great Expectations.

 Perhaps temporary matrimony? No. She was too stubborn. Sue?

 It was possible, of course, but Marianne felt that going to the

 law to gain control of her money would involve her in more

 of a struggle with Harvey than she had the strength for. Nope.

 If Papa had been a chauvinistic Neanderthal, Marianne would

 play it out-all the way. But she would not do it in squalor,

 not even student-style squalor. The jewelry had been given to

 her when Cloud-haired mama had died. So far as anyone knew

 it was still in the safe-deposit box. Marianne had never worn

 it. Now it had gone for fifty percent of its value to pay for

 three stories of dilapidated Italianate brick across the street from

 the university, and Marianne spent every available hour with

 tools or paintbrushes in her hands. The worst of it was done.

 Even the scrappy little area out front had been sodded and

 fringed with daffodils for spring, with pulmonaria and bergenia

 to bloom later, and astilbe waiting in the wings for midsummer.

 Harvey, if he ever came to Virginia to visit her, which he never

 had, would find only what he could have expected-a decently

 refurbished apartment in an elderly house. Not even Mrs. Wine-

 sap or Mr. Larkin knew she owned the place. "Mine," she said

 for the tenth time that day, sinking at last into sleep.

   There had been a time, long before, when there had been

 gardens lit by daffodils fringing acres of lawn. There had been

 a time when there had been many rooms, large, airy rooms

 with light falling into them through gauzy curtains in misty

 colors of dusk and distance. Sometimes, on the verge of wak-

 ing, Marianne thought of that long-ago place. There had been

 a plump cook Marianne had called Tooky, even when she was

 old enough to have learned to say "Mrs. Johnson." There had

 been an old Japanese man and his two sons who worked in the

 gardens. Marianne had trotted after them in the autumn, her

 pockets bulging with tulip bulbs, a bulb in each hand, fascinated

 by the round, solid promise of them, the polished wood feeling

 of their skins, the lovely mystery of the little graves the gardener

 dug-what was his name? Mr. Tanaka. And his sons. Not

 Bob, not Dick. Robert and Richard. Robert digging the round

  

 holes, Marianne pitching in the handfuls of powdery bone-

 meal, Robert mixing it all into a soft bed, then taking the bulbs

 from her one by one to set them in an array. Then, filling in

 the hole, the hole so full of promise, knowing the promise

 would be kept. And then, in the spring, the clumps of green

 stalks, the buds opening into great goblets of bloom. Marianne

 standing with Cloud-haired mama to peer into those blooms,

 into the bottoms of those glorious vases where bees made bel-

 ligerent little noises of ownership against the yellow bases of

 the petals, a round sun glowing at the bottom of the flower to

 echo the great sun burning above them.

   Marianne didn't even remember it, and yet when she had

 bought the garden supplies last fall, she had stood in the garden

 shop with her hand deep in the carton of tulip bulbs, not seeing

 them, unaware of her own silent presence there. When she had

 paid for the plants there had been tears running down her

 cheeks, and the sales clerk had stared at her in perplexity, for

 her voice had been as calm and cheerful as it usually was while

 the tears ran down her cheeks and dropped off her chin. Later,

 she looked into the mirror and saw the runnels from eyes to

 chin and could not think what might have caused them.

   Cloud-haired mama had died when Marianne was thirteen.

 That was when Harvey had... well. No point in thinking about

 it. After that had been boarding schools, mostly. Papa Zahmani

 had sold the big house with the gardens. Holidays had been

 here, in this city, in the town house. Then, only a year later,

 Papa Zahmani had died. The headmistress had told her in the

 office at school and had helped her dress and pack and be ready

 for the car. Two funerals in less than a year, and no reason

 anyone could give for either one. No reason for Mama to have

 died. No reason for Papa to have died. Dr. Brown acted baffled

 and strained, with his mouth clamped shut. After that was more

 school, and more school, and summer camps, and college, and

 more college. There had not been any home to return to, and

 the only career which occurred to her was the same one Harvey

 had entered-ethnology. Which might be another reason for

 his sniping at her. Harvey didn't like competition. As though

 Marianne would be competition-though someday perhaps,

 when she was decades older, if she became recognized in the

 field, and... Well. She tried not to think about it. It was better

  

 not to think about Cloud-haired mama, or Papa Zahmani, or

 Harvey. It was easier to live if one were not angry, and it was

 easier not to be angry if she did not think about those things.

   She woke in the morning to a world washed clean. Outside

 the window the white oak had dropped its burden of winter-

 dried leaves into the wind, littering them across the spring lawns

 which stretched away between swatches of crocus purple and

 ruby walls, a syrup of emeralds, deep as an ocean under the

 morning sun, glittering from every blade. Slate roofs glistened,

 walls shone, teary windows blinked the sun into her face as

 she leaned from the window to recite the roll call of the place.

 Mossy walks, present. Daffodils, granite steps, white columns,

 ivy slickly wet and tight as thatch, a distant blaze of early

 rhododendrons. All bright and shiny-faced, pleased and yet dig-

 nified, as such a place should be, her own slender windows

 fronting on it so that she might soak it in, breathe it, count it

 over like beads. Yew hedge, present. Tulip tree, present. The

 multi-paned windows of the library across the way; the easy

 fall of lawn down the slope to the side walk and street at the

 comer.

   The street. Marianne hastily glanced away, too late. A red

 bus farted away from the curb in pig-stubborn defiance of

 imminent collision. The shriek of crumpled metal came coin-

 cident with the library chimes, and a flurry of Me Donalds

 wrappers lifted from the gutter to skulk into the shrubbery.

 "Damn," she murmured, starting her daily scorecard in the

 endless battle between order and confusion. "Confusion, one;

 order, nothing." By her own complex rules, she could not count

 sameness for order points. There was nothing really new in the

 order of the campus, the buildings, the gardens-no lawn

 freshly mowed or tree newly planted. She made a face as she

 turned back to the room, hands busy unbraiding the thick, black

 plait which hung halfway down her back. The room, at least,

 would not contribute to confusion. Except for the Box.

   It sat half under the coffee table where she had left it, unable

 to bear the thought of it lurking in the darkness of some closet

 or completely under the table where she could not keep an eye

 on it. Better to have it out where she could see it, know where

 it was. "Damn Harvey," she said, starting the day's tally. If

 she took the Box to (he basement storage room, he might decide

  

 to come visit her. She believed, almost superstitiously, that the

 act of taking the Box out of her apartment and putting it some-

 where else, no matter how safe a place that might be, would

 somehow stimulate a cosmic, reciprocal force. If his presence,

 more than merely symbolized by the Box, were removed, some

 galactic accountant might require him to be present in reality.

   "Silly," she admonished herself, kicking the Box as she

 passed it. "Silly!" Still, she left it where it was, decided to

 ignore it, turned on the television set to drown out any thought

 of it. Despite the bus crash, the morning was full of favorable

 portents. No time to waste thinking of Professor Harvey S.

 Zahmani.

   "... Zahmani," the television echoed in its cheerful-pedan-

 tic news voice. "M. A. Zahmani, Prime Minister of Alphen-

 licht, guest lecturer at several American universities this spring,

 prior to his scheduled appearance before the United Nations

 this week..."

   This brought her to crouch before the tube, seeing a face

 altogether familiar. It was Harvey. No, it wasn't Harvey. It

 looked like Harvey, but not around the mouth or eyes. The

 expression was totally different. Except for that, they could be

 Siamese twins. Except that Harvey was up in Boston and this

 man was here at the university to lecture... on what? On Al-

 phenlicht, of course. She had read something about the current

 controversy over Alphenlicht and-what was that other tiny

 country? Lubovosk. There was a Newsweek thingy on it, and

 she burrowed under the table for the latest issue as the television

 began a breathless account of basketball scores and piggy-

 backed commercials in endless, morning babble.

   "... Among the world's oldest principalities, the two tiny

 nations of Alphenlicht and Lubovosk were joined until the

 nineteenth century under a single, priestly house which traced

 its origins back to the semi-mythical Magi. A minor territorial

 skirmish in the mid-nineteenth century left the northern third

 of the minuscule country under Russian control. Renamed 'Lu-

 bovosk,' the separated third now asserts legal rights to the

 priestly throne of Alphenlicht, a claim stoutly opposed by Prime

 Minister of Alphenlicht, Makr Avehl Zahmani...."

   There was a map showing two sausage-link-shaped terri-

 tories carved out of the high mountains between Turkey and

  

 Iraq and an inset picture of a dark, hawk-eyed woman identified

 as the hereditary ruler of Lubovosk. Marianne examined the

 woman with a good deal of interest. The face was very familiar.

 It was not precisely her own, but there was something about

 the expression which Marianne had seen in her mirror. The

 woman might be a cousin, perhaps. "Good lord," Marianne

 admonished the pictured face. "If you and Russia want it, why

 doesn't Russia just invade it the way they did Afghanistan?"

 Receiving no reply, she rose to get about the business of break-

 fast. "Zahmani," she mused. She had never met anyone with

 that name except Harvey and herself. In strange cities, she had

 always looked in the phone book to see whether there might

 be another Zahmani. Then, too, Alphenlicht was the storybook

 land which had always been featured in Cloud-haired mama's

 bedtime tales. Alphenlicht. Surprising, really. She had known

 it was a real place, but she had never thought of it as real until

 this moment. Alphenlicht. Zahmani. "This," she sang to herself

 as she scrambled eggs, "would be interesting to know more

 about."

   When she left the apartment, her hair was knotted on her

 neck, she was dressed in a soft sweater and tweedy skirt, and

 the place was orderly behind her. She checked to see that she

 had her key, the Box nudging her foot while she ignored it,

 refused to see it. Instead, she shut her eyes, turned to face the

 room, then popped her eyes open. She did this every morning

 to convince herself that she had not dreamed the place, every

 morning doubting for a moment that it would be there. Was

 the paint still the dreamed-on color? Were the drapes still soft

 around the windows, curtains moving just a little in the breeze?

 No rain today, so she left the window open an inch to let the

 spring in and find it there when she returned. "I love you,

 room," she whispered to it before leaving it. "I will bring you

 a pot of crocuses tonight." Purple ones. In a blue glazed pot.

 She could see them in her head, as though they were already

 on the window seat, surrounded by the cushions.

   Back in the unremembered time, there had been a window

 seat with cushions where Marianne had nested like a fledgling

 bird. Cloud-haired mama had teased Harvey, sometimes, and

 urged him to sit on the window seat with them and listen to

 her stories. Marianne had been hiding in the cushions of the

  

 window seat the day she had heard Mama speaking to Harvey

 in the exasperated voice she sometimes used. "Harvey, please,

 my dear, find yourself a nice girl your own age and stop this

 nonsense. I am deeply in love with your father, and I could

 not possibly be interested in a boy your age even if I were

 twenty again." Of course, there had only been seven years'

 difference in their ages, Marianne reminded herself. Though

 Papa had been forty-three, Mama had been only twenty-seven

 and Harvey had been twenty. Harvey had been different then;

 he had been handsome as a prince, and kind, and they had

 sometimes gone riding together. She shut down the thought

 before it started. "Begone," she muttered to the memory. "Be

 burned, buried, gone." It was her own do-it-yourself enchant-

 ment, a kind of self-hypnosis, substitute for God knew how

 many thousand dollars worth of psychotherapy. It worked. The

 memory ducked its head and was gone, and as she left the

 room, she was humming.

   At the confluence of three sidewalks, the library notice board

 was always good for one or two order points. The bulletin

 board was always rigorously correct; there were only current

 items upon it; matters of more than passing interest were dec-

 orously sleeved in plastic, even behind the sheltering glass, to

 avoid the appearance of having been handled or read. Marianne

 sometimes envisioned a crew of compulsive, tenured gnomes

 arriving each night to update the library bulletin board. Though

 she had worked at the library for five years now, she had never

 seen anyone prepare anything for the board or post it there.

 She preferred her own concept to the possible truth and did not

 ask about it.

   "Order, one; confusion, one. Score, even," she said to her-

 self. The bulletin board was in some respects an analogue of

 her own life as she sought to have it; neatly arranged, efficiently

 organized, ruthlessly protected. There were no sentimental pos-

 ters left over from sweeter seasons, no cartoons savoring

 ephemeral causes, no self-serving announcements by unnec-

 essary committees. There were only statements of facts in the

 fewest possible, well chosen words. She scrutinized it closely,

 finding no fault in it except that it was dull-a fact which she

 ignored. It was, in fact, so dull that she almost missed the

 announcement.

  

   "Department of Anthropology: Spring Lecture Series, Jour-

 neys in Ethnography. M. A. Zahmani, Magian Survivals in

 Modern Alphenlicht. April 16,12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m. Granville

 Lecture Hall."

   She felt an immediate compulsion to call Harvey and tell

 him that a namesake of theirs was to give a lecture in three

 hours' time on a subject dear to Harvey's heart. Not only a

 namesake, but a Prime Minister. The impulse gave way at once

 to sober second thought. Harvey would be in class at the mo-

 ment. Or, if not in class, he would be in his office persuading

 some nubile candidate for a postgraduate degree that her thesis

 would be immeasurably enhanced by experiencing a field trip

 for the summer in company with "Call Me Har" Zahmani.

 While he might be interested in learning of the visiting lecturer,

 he would certainly be annoyed at being interrupted. Whatever

 Harvey might be doing, he was always annoyed-as well she

 knew-at being interrupted. On the other hand, if she did not

 tell him and he read about it, as he would, in some journal or

 other or even, heaven help her, in the daily paper, then she

 could expect one of those superior, unpleasant phone calls.

 "One would think, Marianne, that with no more on your mind

 than your own not very distinguished academic work, you

 might remember that it is my field...."

   No. Far better to call his apartment and leave a lighthearted-

 sounding message on his machine. Then he would have been

 told and would not have palpable grounds for offense. Which

 did not mean he would not contrive some such grounds, but

 she wouldn't have made it easy for him. She lifted her head

 in unconscious dismissal. Thinking her way around her half

 brother often required that kind of dismissal. Meantime, should

 she or should she not go to the lecture herself? Alphenlicht

 wasn't her subject as it was Harvey's-he had traveled there

 the same summer Mama had died. He had talked about it since

 then, mockingly, and about the Cave of Light. Well. Flip mental

 coin. Rock back and forth on heels and toes. Bite lip. Why

 not, after all? She'd had a large breakfast; she'd simply skip

 lunch.

   And with that it was back to the wars, the library stacks,

 the endless supply of books to be found, shelved, located,

 relocated, repaired, and otherwise dealt with. The work.did

  

 not pay well, but it was steady and quiet; it did not require an

 extensive wardrobe or the expense of socializing. There were

 no men to be avoided, to be wary of, or suspicious of. No

 office parties. The head librarian did have the habit of indulging

 in endless, autobiographical monologues, sometimes of aston-

 ishing intimacy, in Marianne's hearing, but with practice they

 could be ignored. There were no collections for weddings or

 babies. In the library, Marianne was anonymous, virtually un-

 seen. It was a cheap, calm place to work, and Marianne valued

 it for what it was.

   At a quarter past noon she left her work, smoothing her

 sleeves over wrists still damp from a quick wash up. Granville

 was a small lecture hall, which meant they did not expect a

 crowd. She moved through the clots of people on the steps,

 dodging clouds of cigarette smoke, to find a place near the

 front of the hushed hall. The speaker came in with several other

 people, probably people from the Anthropology Department.

 His face was turned away, the outline of his head giving Mari-

 anne a queer, skittish feeling, as the department spokesman

 mounted the podium to mumble a few words of introduction,

 sotto voce, like a troubled bee. Then the speaker turned to

 mount the platform and she thought in revulsive panic, "My

 God, it is Harvey! They got the initials wrong!" Only to see

 that no, it was someone else after all. Her heart began to slow.

 The choked, suffocated feeling began to fade. The first words

 assured her that it was someone else. Harvey's voice was brittle,

 sharp, full of small cutting edges and sly humors. This man's

 voice covered the audience like brocade, rich and glittering.

   "My name is Makr Avehl Zahmani. In my small country,

 which you Westerners call Alphenlicht because of an innocent

 mistake made by an eighteenth-century German geographer, I

 am what you would call a Prime Minister. In a country so small

 as Alphenlicht, this is no great office, though it is an honorable

 one which has been hereditary to my family for almost sev-

 enteen centuries..."

   Hereditary Prime Minister, thought Marianne, and so like

 my half brother they could have been clones. Look at him.

 The same hair. The same eyes. If Alphenlicht is indeed the old

 country from which we came, then you are of the line from

 which we sprang. Harvey wouldn't believe this. I don't think

  

 I'll try to tell him. She looked down at the notes her hand had

 taken automatically, reading "Hereditary for seventeen centu-

 ries ..." Ah, surely that was an exaggeration, she thought,

 looking up to see his eyes upon her, as startled as hers had

 been to see him first. Then his lips bent upward in interested

 surprise and went on speaking even as his look fastened her to

 her seat and told her not to move until there was time to settle

 this thing, this thing he had recognized.

   "There is possibly only one force in human society which

 could have bound one family to so lengthy a course of public

 service. I speak, of course, of religion, and it is of the religion

 of Alphenlicht, the religion of our people, that I have been

 asked to speak to you today..."

   Marianne's score between order and chaos was almost even

 for the week, and Marianne considered this among other things

 as she went on taking notes without thinking about it. If this

 man who looked so much like Harvey were like Harvey, then

 any further attention paid to him would push the confusion

 scores for the week-for the month-beyond any hope of

 recouping. However. She looked down to see her handwriting

 and to underline the word. However! The amusement she was

 hearing was not Harvey's kind of mockery. This man had a

 gentler mind, perhaps? He would not delight in tying knots in

 one just for the fun of it? Flip coin, she told herself, but not

 just yet. He's got some time to talk before I have to decide

 whether to run.

   "Our people serve the god of time and space. Our name for

 this deity is Zurvan, One-Who-Includes-Everything. My own

 family name, Zahman, means 'space.' In the early centuries,

 B.C., during the height of the Persian Empire, our people were

 centered in the lands north of Ecbatana, among the Medes. We

 were known as the Magi..."

   So this is a Magus? Black hair, a little long, flowing over

 his impeccable shirt collar. Narrow face, imperious nose, high

 arching, very mobile brows. Sensual mouth, she thought, fol-

 lowed at once by the enchantment words, buried, burned, gone.

 She would not think about sensual mouths. She wrote 'Magi,'

 underlined it twice, then looked up to find his eyes eagerly

 upon her again. His chin was paler than the rest of his face,

 as though he had recently shaved a beard. She narrowed her

  

 eyes to imagine him with a beard, and a picture flashed-

 glittering robes, tall hat, beard in oiled ringlets. She shook her

 head to rid it of this We-Three-Kings stuff. Beard, she wrote,

 question mark. Why did he go on looking at her like that?

   Because, said the internal monitor, the one Marianne called

 old sexless-logical, just as you recognize a family likeness in

 him, he recognizes one in you. Obviously.

   Obviously, she wrote, listening.

   "Our religion is monotheistic, though not sexist, for Zurvan

 is both male and female. In our own language, we have pro-

 nouns which convey this omni-sexuality (I say 'omni' to allow

 for the possible discovery of some extra terrestrial race which

 needs more than two)"-polite laughter from audience-"but

 in your language you must make allowances when I say 'from

 his womb'..."

   Wombmates, she wrote busily, then scratched it out. Allow-

 ing for the difference in sex, it was possible he recognized her

 in the same way she had recognized him. Same eyes, nose,

 hair, eyebrows. Same mouth.

   "We recognized many attributes of this divine unity, but

 there was a tendency for this recognition to be corrupted into

 mere idolatry or a pervasive dualism. This was convenient for

 kings who needed to incorporate all the little godlets of the

 conquered into the state religion. There began to be priests and

 prophets, some even calling themselves Magi, who turned away

 from the pure, historic religion."

   He's about forty, she thought. Maybe a few years older than

 that. The same age as Harvey. Who should have remained an

 only child. Who would have remained an only child except

 that Papa Zahmani fell for my Cloud-haired mama and the two

 of them went off into eternity, unfortunately leaving me behind.

 From Harvey's point of view. Not that he had ever actually

 said anything of the kind.

   "In the third century A.D. there were widespread charges

 of heresy brought by one Karder, a priest serving the current

 Sassanid king. Karder espoused a more liberal faith, one which

 could incorporate any number of political realities. He and the

 king found the Zurvanian Magi difficult to... ah, manipulate.

 The charges of heresy were made first, on the grounds that the

 king's religion was the correct one, and the persecutions came

  

 after. My people fled north, into the mountains..."

   He was turning to the map on the easel, putting on glasses

 to peer at it a little nearsightedly, taking them off to twiddle

 them, like Professor Frank in ethno-geography. Like old Wil-

 liams. Lord, he could be any teacher, any professor. Why did

 she feel this fascination?

   "The area is now called Kurdistan, near what was Armenia.

 The borders of many modern nations twist themselves together

 in this region-Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, the U.S.S.R.-of

 which I will have more to say later. In the midst of this tangled,

 inaccessible region, my people established a theocracy a mil-

 lenium and three quarters ago. There were no roads into the

 country then. There is one entering our country now, from the

 vicinity of Van, in Turkey. There is another, not so good, from

 the area around Lake Urmia in Iran. We have no airport, though

 we have improved the road during the last decades, to accom-

 modate those who seek the Cave of Light..."

   If he talks about the Cave of Light as endlessly as Harvey

 talks about the Cave of Light, I will simply get up in a dignified

 manner and leave, she thought. As though I have to get to

 class. As though I were late for an appointment with the dean.

 He went on talking about the Cave of Light, and she didn't

 move. Her hand went on taking notes, quietly, automatically,

 while she sat there and let the words flow through. Harvey

 called the Cave of Light a kind of historic Ouija board. Makr

 Avehl Zahmani obviously thought it was more than that-a

 good deal more than that. I can't be taking this seriously, she

 thought. Magi, for God's sake. Magians, magicians, magic.

 Lord.

   "Several generations ago the czars of Russia extended their

 borders in several areas. One such extension cut our small

 country into two parts. The northern third of it was gobbled

 up into Russia and renamed Lubovosk. The Magi who live in

 Lubovosk are still our people, our separated people. They now

 have their own charges of heresy to contend with. In seventeen

 hundred years not that much has changed. Now, I have used

 my allotted time. If any of you have questions, please feel free

 to come forward and ask them of me."

   She did not move during the light, appreciative applause.

 He had been a good speaker. The hall emptied. A half-dozen

  

 argumentative students went forward to pick at details of his

 talk. She sat. Even when the arguers went away and the speaker

 came toward her, she sat as he scanned her face quarter inch

 by quarter inch, shivering between smile and frown.

   "My dear young woman," he said, "I believe we must be

 related."

   She could not afterward remember quite how it happened

 that she accompanied him to the only good restaurant nearby

 and found herself drinking a third or fourth glass of wine as

 she finished her dessert. She seemed to have been listening to

 him for hours as he sparkled and glittered, telling her marvelous

 things about marvelous places and people. Something he said

 made her comment on her game of muddle versus order and

 her lifetime cumulative score.

   "Confusion is winning," she admitted. "Not so far ahead

 that one gives up all hope, but far enough to make me very

 anxious. It uses up a lot of energy."

   "Ah," he said, wiping his lips with his napkin before reach-

 ing out to touch her hand. "Do your rules allow transfer of

 points?"

   "I don't understand. What do you mean, transfer?"

   "Well, my own lifetime cumulative score is somewhat better

 than yours. I have several thousand points ahead for order. Of

 course, I have an advantage because of the Cave of Light-

 no. Don't say that you don't believe in it, or that it's all terribly

 interesting, but.... All that isn't really relevant. I simply want

 to know if your rules allow transfer of points, because, if they

 do, I will transfer a thousand points to you. This will take off

 the immediate pressure, and perhaps you can strengthen your

 position sufficiently to mount a counterattack."

   If there had been any hint of amusement in his voice, even

 of a teasing sort, she would have laughed politely and-what?

 Accepted? Rejected? Said something about one having to play

 one's own hand? The surface Marianne, well educated in the

 superficial social graces, could have handled that. However,

 this did not sound like a social offer. The tone was that of an

 arms control negotiator placing before the assembly the position

 of his government. It reminded her that she was speaking with

 a Prime Minister, all too seriously, and yet how wonderful to

 be ahead for a while. A gift of such magnitude, however, might

  

 carry an obligation. Begone, buried, she whispered to herself.

   "It's too much," she whispered to him, completely serious.

 "I might not be able to repay."

   "Kinswoman," he said, laying his hand upon hers, the tingle

 of that contact moving into her like a small lightning stroke,

 shocking and intimate. "Kinswoman, there is no obligation.

 Believe me. If you know nothing else of me, if we do not meet

 again, know this of me. There is no obligation."

   "But-a thousand. So much?"

   "It is important to me that my kinswoman win her battles,

 that she be decisively ahead. That she be winning and know

 herself to be winning."

   "But it wouldn't be me who was winning."

   "Nonsense. If a gunner at the top of a hill uses all his

 ammunition and an ally rushes ammunition to him at a critical

 time, it is still the gunner who wins if he keeps his head and

 uses all his skill. He has merely been reinforced. We are kins-

 men, therefore allies. You will forgive me if I do not say

 'kinspersons.' I learned my English in a more elegant setting,

 in a more elegant time. However, you need not decide at this

 moment. Merely remember that it is important to me that you

 win. There is no obligation beyond that. You would favor me

 by accepting." And he left the subject, to talk instead of Al-

 phenlicht, of his boyhood there, being light and gracious.

   When they parted, it was like waking from a dream. Frag-

 ments of their conversation fled across her mind only to dis-

 sipate. The lecture hall, the restaurant assumed dream scale

 and color. When she turned to see the restaurant still behind

 her, solid and ordinary as any other building on the street, it

 was with a sense of detached unreality. She attended a class,

 took notes, entered into the discussion, and did not remember

 it five minutes later. She went to her apartment, stopping on

 the way to shop for food and milk, and stood inside it holding

 the paper sack without knowing where she was. It was a square,

 white envelope on the carpet that brought her to herself at last,

 her name written on it in a quick, powerful hand. The message

 read, "I have transferred one thousand order points to you. If

 you do not wish to receive them, you may return them to me.

 May I have the pleasure of your company at dinner on Thursday

 night? I will call you tomorrow. Makr Avehl."

  

   When she touched the envelope, she received the same

 tingling shock she had felt from his hand, but as she read the

 words, most of the cloudy confusion vanished.

   "He did give me a thousand points," she told herself, know-

 ing with certainty that it was true. "I've got them, I can tell I

 have," knowing that she not only had them but had accepted

 them. If she had not had them, she would have been too con-

 fused to accept them. Now that she had them, she knew she

 would keep them. "It's like an anti-depressant," she said to

 herself, caroling, doing a little jig on the carpet so that the

 groceries ripped their way through the bottom of the brown

 bag and rolled about on the rug, oranges and lemons and brown-

 and-serve rolls. "Before you take it, you're too depressed to

 want it. After you take it, you know it was what you needed."

   There was, of course, one small confusion. Her door had

 been tightly locked. No one had a key except herself. How,

 then, had the square white envelope come to rest in the middle

 of the carpet, where she could not fail to see it but where no

 one could possibly have put it?

   Magus, she hummed. Magi, Magian, Magician.

  

 THERE WAS A knock at the door. Someone turned the knob and

 Marianne heard Mrs. Winesap's voice.

   "Girl? I heard you coming in. Someone brought you a pretty."

 Mrs. Winesap was addicted to slightly regional speech, the

 region in question varying from day to day so that Marianne

 was never sure whether the woman was from the South, West,

 or New England states. On occasion, Mrs. Winesap's speech

 approached an Elizabethan richness, and Marianne thought the

 true source of her changing accent might be overdoses of BBC

 period imports.

   "Mrs. Winesap. Come on in. What is it?"

   "Crocuses," the woman replied. "In a pretty pot. A man

 brought them. I was out front, and he came along looking lost,

 so I asked him who he was looking for. After he told me they

 were for you, we got to talking. I thought at first he might be

 your brother, there being a family resemblance and my eyes

 not being that good. Then I knew that was silly, your brother

 being the kind of person he is and all."

   Marianne had never discussed Harvey with Mrs. Winesap

 that she could recall, and her attention was so fixed on the gift

  

 that she completely missed the implications of this statement.

 Mrs. Winesap often seemed to know a great deal about Harvey

 or, perhaps more accurately, knew a great deal about people

 and things that affected Marianne.

   "The man who brought these is... he's a kind of cousin, I

 guess, Mrs. Winesap. I met him today. It was nice of him to

 be so thoughtful." The crocuses were precisely as she had

 visualized them, purple ones, in a glazed pot of deepest, persian

 blue."Same name as yours, so I guessed he was some kind of

 kin," commented Mrs. Winesap. "Anyhow, he left the flowers

 with me after he made me promise six times I'd see you got

 them as soon as you got home. Seemed like a very determined

 sort of person. You got something cold to drink, Marianne? I

 been moving that dirt out back, and it's hotter'n Hades for

 April."

   Marianne hid a smile as she went to the refrigerator. It was

 true that Mrs. Winesap was a bit dirt-smeared, and also true

 that she was largely responsible for the emerging order in the

 garden, but it was not even warm for April, much less hot.

 Mrs. Winesap simply wanted to talk.

   "Larkin bought an edger at the flea market. Paid a dollar

 and a half for it. Want to go halfies?" This was rhetorical.

 Mr. Larkin would present Marianne with a written bill for

 seventy-five cents, which Marianne would pay without demur.

 Sometimes Marianne believed that the two downstairs tenants

 suspected Marianne owned the place and were playing a game

 with her. Other times she was sure they had no idea. Whatever

 their suspicions or lack thereof, they had decided that garden

 maintenance was to be their particular responsibility, and that

 the upstairs tenant should pay what they delighted in calling

 "halfies." Since the expenditures never exceeded two or three

 dollars at a time, Marianne managed to cope.

   "An edger?" she asked.

   "You know. A flat blade on a handle, to cut the grass straight

 where it comes along the flower garden. It was all rusty is how

 come he got it so cheap. You know Larkin. Give him something

 rusty and he's happy as a clam all day cleaning it up. Does

 your brother know this cousin of yours?"

   As usual with Mrs. Winesap's more personal inquiries, the

  

 question caught Marianne completely by surprise and she an-

 swered it before she thought. "No. I just met him today myself."

   "Ah," said Mrs. Winesap with deep satisfaction. "So you'll

 have to call your brother and tell him about it. About meeting

 a new relative and all."

   The emotion Marianne felt was the usual one, half laughter,

 half indignation. Her response was also the usual one: dignified,

 slightly cool. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I was just going to call

 Harvey, Mrs. Winesap. Take that soda along with you. I do

 need to catch him before he leaves for the evening...." Polite,

 firmly shutting door behind her visitor, Marianne fought down

 the urge to peer through the keyhole at the landing in fear she

 might see Mrs. Winesap's eye peering back at her. Instead she

 went to the phone, moved both by her assertion and the need

 to leave some kind of message.

   Harvey always considered it an intrusion for Marianne to

 tell him anything. Nonetheless, he would deeply resent not

 being told. A quick message on his machine would be the least

 risky way of informing him, and if she avoided answering the

 phone for a while after that, he might see Makr Avehl Zahmani's

 name on the news and realize that Marianne was, in fact, only

 telling him the truth. It was part of Harvey's usual treatment

 of her to accuse her of making up stories, as though she were

 still seven years old, and once committed to the assertion that

 she was fabricating it would be hard for him to back off. She

 encouraged herself to take a deep breath and do it, managing

 to make the message sound calm and good-humored. She un-

 plugged the phone with a sense of relief. She didn't want to

 hear it ring if he called her back.

   "I am ahead on points," she told herself. "Well ahead, and

 I have no intention of ever getting behind again." She tried the

 pot of crocuses in various places, finally putting them on the

 window seat as she had originally intended, then threw together

 a few scrappy bites of supper. When she had finished, she

 started to take the dishes into the kitchen, stumbling unex-

 pectedly over something which was not supposed to be there.

   The Box.

   It was at the edge of the kitchen counter, where she could

 not avoid stepping over it, where she must have already stepped

 over it while preparing her meal without seeing it, without

  

 remembering. She stared at it in confusion. That morning-

 yes, that morning it had been in the living room under the

 coffee table. Who could have moved it? Mrs. Winesap? Perhaps

 out of some desire to help, some instinct to tidy up? With a

 grimace of actual pain she lifted it back to the place she last

 remembered it being, half under the table, possessed in that

 moment by a completely superstitious awe and fear.

   The Box was a symbolic embodyment of Harvey-ness. If

 she gave him cause for disturbance up in Boston, then the Box

 would take it out on her down here in Virginia. She knew this

 was ridiculous but was as firmly convinced of it as she was of

 her own name. Her mood of valiant contentment destroyed,

 she went about her evening chores in a mood of dogged irri-

 tation. Sounds bothered her. Traffic. Mrs. Winesap rattling the

 trash cans. Doors closing. A phone ringing. Mrs. Winesap

 laboring up the stairs and a repetition of that firm, brook-no-

 nonsense knock, the knob turning, her voice.

   "Girl, your brother called our phone. Says he's been trying

 to reach you and can't get an answer." Broad face poked around

 the edge of the door, eyes frankly curious as the face was

 frankly friendly.

   "Oh-shit," said Marianne, breaking her own rules con-

 cerning language and behavior.

   Mrs. Winesap pulled a parody of shock over her face. She

 had heard Marianne's lecture on scatology directed more than

 once at Mr. Larkin. "Got the phone unplugged, haven't you?"

   Marianne nodded in dismal annoyance. "How did he know

 to call you? He's never been here. He's never even met you."

   "Yes, he did. Came by one day about two weeks ago. Told

 me he was your brother. Introduced himself. Course, I intro-

 duced myself back. We talked some."

   "You... talked some."

   "I told him it was a nice day," she reported with dignity,

 "and I told him you weren't in your apartment but I'd be glad

 to take a message. He pumped me all about you, and I let him

 know I was blind in both eyes and couldn't hear out of either

 ear. Did tell him my name, though, and I'm in the book."

  "You never told me."

  "No reason to. Why upset you? I didn't like him, so I figured

  

 you probably didn't either. He was all over sparkle like a merry-

 go-round horse, expecting anyone with a-with breasts to fall

 down and play dead."

   "Oh." This was precisely Marianne's view of Harvey, but

 she had not thought it generally shared. This explained why

 Mrs. Winesap had at first thought Makr Avehl was her brother.

 "So, he knew your name and looked you up in the book."

   "Most likely. Anyhow, just now I told him the reason you

 didn't answer was you weren't in and I'd be glad to leave a

 message for you to call him. Consider message delivered. OK?

 Seemed best."

   "Thanks, Mrs. Winesap."

   "One of these days, girl, you'll get tired of calling me 'Mrs.

 Winesap,' and the name 'Letitia' will just slip out. I won't

 mind, whenever that is." She shut the door firmly behind her,

 leaving Marianne in some limbo between laughter and tears.

   The door opened again to allow Mrs. Winesap to deliver

 herself of an utterance.

   "Marianne, whatever it is you don't like about that man,

 brother or not, you got a right. Don't you sit up here feeling

 guilty because you don't like him."

   This time tears won.

   Oh, yes, she did feel guilty about it. The only family she

 had left, the only kin, and she frequently wanted him gone.

 "Begone, burned, buried," she chanted quietly. If there was

 any actual guilt, it was Harvey's, not Marianne's, but knowing

 this didn't seem to make the horrid nagging weight of it any

 easier. She often tried to reduce the whole conflict to one of

 disparate personalities. "He is domineering," she told herself,

 "and authoritarian. He relishes power, and he uses it, but he

 is not some all-devouring monster." Saying this did not con-

 vince her this time any more than it had before.

   "So, I'll return his call," she told herself, plugging in the

 phone and tapping his number with hesitant fingers.

   "Harvey? Returning your call?" She listened with sup-

 pressed, seething warmth as he complained that she had not

 been in earlier, that she should not leave messages on his

 machine unless she would be available to take a call, that-.

   "Harvey, I am sorry. I didn't intend that you should have

  

 to take the trouble to call me. I just wanted you to know about

 the Zahmani Prime Minister from Alphenlicht. I thought you'd

 be interested."

   Oily sweet, the voice she hated. "Bitsy? Are you playing

 one of those infantile 'let's pretend' games again?"

   She heard her own voice replying, "Harvey, hold on a mo-

 ment, will you? Someone's at the door." She took a deep breath,

 strode to the door, opened it, closed it, mumbled to herself,

 struck the wall with her hand. Her usual response to him under

 like circumstances would have been something full of self-

 doubt, something cringing. Harvey, I don't think so. He really

 did look as though he was related. He really did say...

   She returned to the phone. "Harve. Someone has come and

 I have to go now. If you catch the news tonight or tomorrow,

 you'll probably see the Prime Minister on it. He's here to speak

 at the U.N. Sorry I have to run." And hung up on Harvey S.

 Zahmani without waiting for permission.

   He would not want to appear foolish, not even to her. Give

 him time to find out that what she had told him was the simple

 truth, and he'd be less likely to take some irrevocably punitive

 decision about money matters-always his last argument when

 others failed. She unplugged the phone again, resolving not to

 connect herself to the world again until morning. "One more

 point for order," she sighed. "Score for order, for the day, one

 thousand and one."

   In the morning, she forgot to connect the phone. When she

 got home, it was ringing. There was no time to think who?

 How? She knew it was Makr Avehl and answered it without a

 qualm. "Thank you for the flowers," she said, her voice slipping

 sideways into childlike pleasure.

   "You said you intended to shop for some," he replied, "but

 I knew you wouldn't have time yesterday if you were in class.

 I took most of your afternoon, so it was only proper to repay."

 His voice was enthusiastic, warm. It changed suddenly. "I was

 in New York today, at the U.N. I met your brother. He's very

 like you in appearance."

   "Harvey's in Boston," she said. "Not at the U.N. You can't

 have-"

   "Sorry," he laughed. "I didn't lead up to it. A woman named

 Madame Delubovoska and I are on opposite sides of a very

  

 small international issue. Madame and I are related. Madame,

 it turns out, is your half-brother's aunt, his mother's much

 younger sister. Today, in New York, your half-brother was

 visiting his aunt and I met him. Is that somewhat more clear?

 I said he much resembled you."

   "It's you he resembles, actually. When I first saw you, I

 thought you were Harvey."

   "That's true. You even said so." There was a long silence,

 a calculating silence. "Marianne, may I come see you?"

   "You're in New York."

   "No. I was in New York. I'm about two blocks from you,

 in a phone booth."

   "Well, of course. Yes. Can you find the house-oh, you've

 already been here once."

   "I'll find you." Dry-voiced, humorous, amused at her con-

 fusion. She put her hands against her flaming face. It took

 practice to behave with calm and poise around men like Makr

 Avehl-around men at all. Marianne had not practiced, had

 no intention of practicing, for she had decided not to need such

 skill. She told herself that just now her concerns were house-

 wifely. She hadn't dusted, hadn't vacuumed since the weekend.

 Well, it didn't look cluttered, except for the Box. Better leave

 it, even if he noticed it.

   There was nothing in the house to offer him except some

 sherry and cheese and crackers. Well, he couldn't complain,

 dropping in unexpectedly this way. Quick look in the mirror,

 quick wash up of hands and face. No time for makeup. No

 need with that hectic flush on lips and cheeks. "Lord," she

 thought, "one would think I had never had anyone drop in

 before." A moment's thought would have told her the truth of

 this. There had been no one to drop in. Except for Mrs. Wine-

 sap. And the plumber. And the phone man. And people of that

 ilk. The stairs creaked outside her door.

   He stood there in a soft shirt and jeans, not at all like a

 Prime Minister, perhaps more like her childhood dream of a

 fairy tale prince.

   "You didn't bring your horse and lance," she said, caught

 up in the fantasy.

   "The joust isn't until later," he replied, "unless you have a

 dragon you want skewered in the next half hour?" She was so

  

 involved in the story she was telling herself that it did not seem

 in the least remarkable that he had read her mind. Laughing,

 she waved him in.

   They drank sherry and ate cheese. Makr Avehl sprawled on

 the window seat and waved his finger in her face as he lectured

 on the day's events. "I made my speech. Madame made her

 speech. Neither of us convinced the other. I will now bore you

 greatly by telling you what the dispute is about?" There was

 an interrogative silence, not long, for she was happy to let him

 carry the burden of their conversation. "Madame and I are

 cousins, of the same lineage, you understand. When our land

 was cut into two parts in the last century-as the result of

 some minor Czarist expansion or other, utterly unimportant and

 long forgotten except to those of us directly involved-Tahiti's

 great-grandfather was in the northern piece of the country and

 my great-grandfather was in the southern part. They were broth-

 ers. You heard my little speech the other day, so you know

 that Alphenlicht is a theocracy." He bit a cracker noisily, ex-

 amining her face. "Don't wrinkle your nose so. There are nice

 theocracies, and ours is one. We are not reactionary or au-

 thoritarian; we do not insist upon conformity or observation of

 taboos." He raised one triangular brow at her, giving her a

 brilliant smile, and she felt herself turning to hot liquid from

 her navel to her knees as her face flamed.

   She rose, made unnecessary trips with glasses, ran cold

 water over her wrists in the kitchen.

   He went on. "At any rate, in the southern half of Alphen-

 licht, things went on very much as they had for a very long

 time. We did begin sending some of our young people out of

 the country to be educated, and we did begin to import some

 engineers to do modem things like building roads and bridges.

 We also imported a few motor vehicles, though certain of the

 Kavi, that is, members of the priesthood, questioned that much

 innovation."

   "I thought you said you were not reactionary?" She managed

 to sound matter-of-fact rather than sultry, with some effort.

   "Oh, it wasn't a question of religion. It was a question of

 aesthetics. Some members of the Council simply felt that cars

 and trucks smelled very bad. There were long arguments con-

 cerning utility versus aesthetics. I've read them. Very dull.

  

   "To continue with my tale: The narrow pass which connected

 Alphenlicht and Lubovosk was controlled by Russian border

 guards. Over the past hundred years interaction between the

 two parts of the country has been very much restricted. Access

 to the Cave of Light has been almost impossible for people

 from the north. Since they had been accustomed to using the

 cave, they evolved their own substitutes. People do find ways

 to get answers to important questions. Theirs involved a heavy

 admixture of shamanistic influences."

   "I thought shamans were from-oh, the far north."

   "Some are. Some are found in Turkey. The black shamans

 who came to Lubovosk did happen to be from the far north.

 Well, at this point we may make a long story short. Four

 generations after the separation, a group of people in Lubovosk,

 supported by the U.S.S.R. for obvious reasons, has decided

 that Lubovosk, not Alphenlicht, is the true heir to the religious

 leadership of both countries. They base this on the fact that

 Madame's great-grandfather was my great-grandfather's older

 brother. They conveniently ignore the fact that after several

 generations of re-education and shamanistic influences, there's

 no one in Lubovosk who even pretends to believe in religion,

 a prerequisite, one would think, if a theocracy is to work. The

 U.S. State Department supports us, of course. Russia supports

 Lubovosk's ridiculous claim. No one else cares. So we have

 gone through this charade. When it was all over, some of the

 delegates woke up and went on with their business. Everyone

 was very bored. The only two people present who took it

 seriously were Madame and I. Do you know Tahiti? She is

 named, by the way, for the fire goddess of our ancestors. Not

 inappropriately."

   "Madame Delubovoska? No. I never knew she existed until

 a few days ago."

   "As I told you, she is a kind of back side kin of yours. You

 can imagine how surprised I was when she introduced Professor

 Zahmani to me. I knew at once who he was, of course, for

 you had told me about him."

   "Not too much, I hope," she said in astonishment. "I cer-

 tainly never thought you'd meet him...."

   "Ah. Well, it turned out fortuitously. I had just invited Ma-

 dame to the country place we have taken here when she intro-

  

 duced me to your brother. So I invited him as well, intending

 that you, also, should be my guest."

   "Oh. With... Harvey? I don't..." She did not know what

 to say. The thought stunned and horrified her, and her voice

 betrayed the emotions. There was a strained silence.

   "I see I have made a mistake," he said with obvious dis-

 comfort and an expression almost of dismay. "There is some-

 thing awkward? You do not like him?"

   "I-I'm probably very childish. It's just-he's quite a bit

 older than I. He was left rather in charge of my affairs when

 Papa Zahmani died. He is not..."

   "Not sympathetic."

   "No. No, you may truthfully say that he is not sympathetic.

 Not where his little sister is concerned."

   "But it's more than that? Even when I said I had met him,

 there was a certain quality in your silence. It is something

 which makes you reluctant to meet him at all?"

   "It is awkward," she admitted. "Sometimes I interpret things

 he does and says as-threatening. He may not intend them in

 that way. And yet..."

   He was looking at her in a curiously intent way, not inti-

 mately, more as though he found her a fascinating item of study.

 The perusal did not make her feel insulted or invaded, as men's

 thoughtful glances sometimes did, but she felt the questing

 pressure of his gaze as an urgent interest, impossible to ignore.

 It was suddenly important that he know how she felt... and

 why. Particularly why.

   She reached down and tugged the Box from beneath the

 table, pushing it toward him so that it rested against his well

 polished shoes. "Look in that. Everything in there is something

 Harvey has given me over the last several years. Presents.

 Together with suggestions as to where to display them. I

 couldn't... couldn't bring myself to put them out, not here,

 so I've kept them in this box."

   He put down his glass. She had not sealed the Box, but had

 merely closed the cardboard carton by folding the top together.

 He opened it and drew out the two framed prints which lay on

 top, setting them side by side against the table and regarding

 them with the same intent gaze he had focused on her.

   To the right was a cheaply framed print of an Escher lith-

  

 ograph, an endless ribbon of black fishes and white birds swim-

 ming in space, at one end the black figures emerging, at the

 other the white, coming forward from two dimensions into

 three, from shadow shapes into breathing reality, one white

 bird flying free of the pattern only to be cruelly killed by the

 devilish fangs of the metallic black fish.

   "It bothered me when he gave it to me. So, one day at the

 library, I looked it up," she said, trying to be unemotional.

 Everything in her screamed anger at the black fish, but she

 was so long experienced in swallowing her anger that she be-

 lieved it did not show. "The artist wrote that the bird was all

 innocence, doomed to destruction. Not exactly cheerful, but

 by itself it shouldn't have made me feel as unpleasant as I did.

 Then I got the other one..."

   He turned his attention to the other print, this one of a

 painting. "Paul Delvaux," murmured Makr Avehl. "Titled

 Chrysis. Well."

   A naked girl stood on a lonely platform at the edge of an

 abandoned town, a blonde, her scanty pubic hair scarcely shad-

 owing her crotch, eyes downcast, lacy robe draped behind her

 as though just fallen from her shoulders, right hand holding a

 lighted candle. To the left of the picture a floodlight threw hard

 shadows against a dark building. On a distant siding, a freight

 car crouched, red lights on it gleaming like hungry, feral eyes

 in the dark.

   "She's like the white bird in the other picture," Marianne

 said. "All alone. Totally vulnerable. She has no protection at

 all. Nothing. Someone horrible is coming. You can tell she

 knows it. She is trying to pretend that she is dreaming, but she

 isn't."

   "Ah," he said. "Is there more?"

   She reached into the bottom of the Box to pull out the little

 carvings of ivory, basalt, soaps tone. Eskimo and Bantu and

 old, old oriental. Strange, hulked shapes, little demons. An-

 other black fish. A white skull-faced ghost. An ebony devil.

 A small ornamented bag made of stained and tattered skin with

 some dry, whispery material inside. "I don't know what's in

 it," she said, apologetically. "I didn't want to open it. Harvey

 said it was a witch bag. Something from Siberia? I think his

 card said it belonged to a shaman."

  

   "Yes," said Makr Avehl soberly. "I should think it probably

 did. And should never have left Siberia. It is black shamans

 from there who have come to Lubovosk."

   "All these things are interesting, in a way. Even the little

 bag, colored and patterned the way it is. I feel a little guilty

 to be so ungrateful for them. It's just-Harvey had never given

 me gifts before. Not even cards on my birthday. And then,

 suddenly, to give me such strange things, which make me feel

 so odd...."

   "What did he suggest you do with them?" Makr Avehl's

 voice had a curious flatness, almost a repressed distaste, as

 though he smelled something rotten but was too polite to say

 anything about it.

   "When he gave me the picture of the fish and the birds, he

 told me to hang it on the wall in my bedroom-he hadn't been

 here, but I told him I had a one bedroom apartment. Then,

 later, when he gave me the other one, he said to hang it in the

 living room. The other things were to be put on my desk or

 bookshelves. Of course, since he hadn't been here, he didn't

 really know what it's like...."

   "It's a very pleasant apartment," he commented, looking

 about him as he packed the things back into the Box. "You've

 done most of it yourself, haven't you?"

   "How did you know? Does it look that amateurish?"

   "Not in that sense. Amateur in the sense of one who loves

 something, yes. I was a student in this country for a while,

 and I know what the usual kind of apartments available to

 students are like. They are not like this."

   She flushed. "I guess I do love it. I hadn't had any place

 of my own since Clou-since Mother died. It was important

 to me."

   "You started to call her something else."

   "Just-a kind of fairy tale name." Ordinarily, Marianne did

 not confide in people, certainly not on short acquaintance, but

 the focused, intent quality in his interest wiped away her ret-

 icence. "I always called her Cloud-haired mama, and she called

 me Mist Princess. It was only a kind of story telling, role

 playing, I guess. We were alone a lot of the time. Papa was

 away. Harvey was at school, mostly. Lately I have remembered

 that she was only four or five years older than I am now, and

  

 yet I still feel like such a child most of the time. So-she

 wasn't too old for fairy tales, even then."

   "Ah. But despite your enjoyment of fairy tales, you do not

 like the pictures and these little carvings."

   "I don't. They make me feel-oh, slimy. Does that make

 sense to you? I felt it, but didn't understand it."

   "Oh, yes." Flat voice. "It makes sense. Of a kind. Would

 you mind terribly if I took these away with me? I'll return

 them, or something like them. Something you'll be more com-

 fortable with. Since your brother does not visit you, he is

 unlikely to care. The sense of his gifts will be maintained."

 He closed the Box firmly on its contents. "Now, what are we

 going to do about the weekend?"

   She smiled, made a little, helpless gesture. "I don't want

 to seem stubborn or childish, really, but I think it might be

 better if I didn't accept your invitation."

   "That makes me sad. It's obvious to me that I've made a

 miscalculation. Tahiti and I are old adversaries, and her I in-

 vited out of bravado. My own sister, Ellat, will be peeved with

 me. She often tells me my desire for bravura effect will get

 me in trouble, and she is often right. Whenever I am full of

 pride, I am brought low. What is your proverb-Pride goeth

 before a fall? Well, so I am fallen upon grievous times. Because

 I had invited her, I invited him, because I wanted you. I will

 now have a guest I did not much want in the place of one I

 had very much wanted, for I know you would enjoy it. Can I

 beg you? Importune you?"

   Curiosity and apprehension were strangely mingled, and yet

 her habitual caution could not be so easily overcome. The

 thought of spending a weekend in Harvey's company, among

 strangers. Strangers. She reminded herself firmly that the man

 sitting so intimately opposite her was a stranger. Charming,

 yes. So could Harvey be. Seemingly interested in her as a

 reality, not merely as an adjunct to himself-but then, how

 could one tell? "I-I'd like to think about it. Perhaps I could

 give you an answer later in the week?"

   He had the courtesy to look disappointed but not accusing

 and to convey by a tilted smile that he knew the difference.

 "Of course you may. And you must not feel any pressure of

 courtesy to agree if it will make you more uncomfortable than

  

 the pleasure the visit might afford you. Everything is a balance,

 isn't that so?" He stood up, shifted his shoulders as though

 readying them for some weighty burden, toed the box at his

 feet."Now, there are things I must do. We do have a dinner date

 tomorrow, and I will return your belongings then. Someone

 told me of a place nearby where there is a native delicacy

 served. Something called a soft crab?"

   "Soft-shelled crabs," she laughed. "You must mean Wil-

 lard's. It's famous all up and down the coast."

   "I shall find them very strange and quite edible," he an-

 nounced. "Until tomorrow." At the door he touched her cheek

 with his lips, no more than an avuncular caress, a kind of

 parent to child kiss. Her skin flinched away from him, her face

 flamed, and she gave thanks for the darkness of the hall and

 for the fact that he picked up the Box and left, not turning to

 look back at her as she shut the door between them.

   She did not see him set the Box down on the stair and wipe

 his hands fastidiously on his handkerchief. Sweat beaded his

 upper lip, and he shook his head, mouth working, as though

 to spit away some foul taste. For a moment, when he had

 opened the Box, he had felt as though astray in nightmare. One

 did not expect to smell such corruption in the pleasant apartment

 of an innocent-oh, yes, make no mistake about that-in-

 nocent young woman. Yet he had smelled it, tasted it. Makr

 Avehl Zahmani had some experience with wickedness. As a

 leader of his people, it was part of his duty to diagnose evil

 and protect against it. What he felt rising from the Box had a

 skulking obscenity of purpose, a stench of decay. His face

 sheened with sweat at the self-control it took to lift the Box

 and carry it. He drew a pen from his pocket, used it to jot a

 quick shorthand of symbols and letters on each of the six faces

 of the Box. Then he picked it up once more, a bit more easily,

 throwing a quick glance over his shoulder at the door at the

 top of the stairs.

   Behind that door, Marianne was conscious of nothing but

 shame and fear, shame at the feel of hard nipples pressing

 against her blouse, shame at the brooding, liquid heat in her

 groin, fear at the greedy demands of a desire which had am-

 bushed her out of nowhere and was swallowing her into some

  

 endless gut of hungry sensation.

   She clung to the door, cringing under a lash of memory.

 There had been Cloud-haired mama dead in the next room,

 cold and white and forever gone. How did she die, Marianne

 had demanded, over and over. She was young! She wasn't

 sick! How could she have died? There had been no answers,

 not from Papa Zahmani, not from Harvey who had only looked

 at her strangely, expressionlessly, as though he did not know

 her. There had been whispering, shouts from behind closed

 doors, Dr. Brown saying, "I would have said she died of suf-

 focation, Haurvatat. I can't explain it. I don't know why. Some-

 times hearts just fail." And Marianne crying, crying endlessly,

 finally seeking Harvey out and throwing herself into his arms

 in the late, dark night.... And then had come the frightening

 thing. And after the housekeeper had come in and interrupted

 him, he had hissed at her, "Bitch princess. You're as soft and

 usable as your mad mama was...."

   She leaned against the door, digging her nails into her palms.

 "I'm not like that!" she screamed at herself silently. "I'm not

 like that at all." Demon voices in her mind hissed, "Soft,

 usable, bitch!" An obscene heat enveloped her, and she was

 back in the old house, returned to Harvey's holding her, touch-

 ing her, starting to undress her with fingers busy under her

 clothes, and herself responding to him in a kind of dazed frenzy

 which had no thought in it, no perception except of a hoped-

 for forgetfulness, a much desired unconsciousness. And then

 he had been interrupted, and the shame had come, the shame of

 his using Mama's name, defiling her death, defiling her child-

 and Mama's child involved in the defilement, cooperating in it.

 "No, no, no," she screamed now as she had then. "I am not like

 that. Mama wasn't like that. I won't, won't, won't!"

   Somewhere inside herself she found the calmer voices. "This

 man is not Harvey. This man is someone else. He has Harvey's

 face, but he has not Harvey's sins. He is attractive, you are

 attracted, but this hot shame is only memory, Marianne. It is

 not now, not real, only memory. And you, Marianne, you are

 well enough alone. So. Stay alone, Marianne, and do not re-

 member that time. And perhaps, someday, you will find it is

 forgotten."

  She took her chastened self into the shower and then out

  

 for a long, exhausting walk to weary even her tireless brain,

 a brain which kept trying by an exercise of pure persistence to

 make her wounds heal by cutting them deeper. For, of course,

 among all the other monsters was the monster of guilt, guilt

 which said that she herself had been responsible, not the grown

 man but herself, the child, the woman who should have known

 better, for are not women supposed to know better? And if the

 twelve-year-old Marianne did not know better, then best for

 the twenty-five-year-old Marianne to work in the quiet library

 and attend the endless classes and have no male friends at all,

 for she, too, might not know better if put to the test. She would

 not go for the weekend, would not allow this feeling to take

 hold of her, would not allow her calm to be destroyed.

   "Of course," her internal self reminded her, "you are not

 always so calm, Marianne. Sometimes in the deep night, you

 waken. Sometimes when the sheets are sensuously soft against

 your newly bathed skin. Sometimes in the midst of a TV show,

 when the young man and the young woman look at each other

 in that way-that way-then you are not so calm."

   "Begone," she said wearily. "Burned, buried, begone." Usu-

 ally the litany or the long walk let her sleep, but tonight she

 lay wakeful, dozing from time to time only to start awake again,

 until she gave up at last and took two of the little red pills Dr.

 Brown had given her. Her sleep was dark, dreamless, empty,

 and when morning came she was able to convince herself that

 the night's turmoil had been unreal and that she had not been

 mired in it at all.

   She could not feel anticipation for the evening. Each time

 she thought of it, it loomed at the end of her day like a road

 marker, pointing to some unknown destination, evoking an

 apprehension not so much for the destination itself as for the

 unfamiliar and possibly tedious journey it would take to reach

 it. She was familiar with the feeling, one which had served in

 the past to limit her society to the few, the necessary, and she

 felt ashamed of it without in any way being able to defeat it.

 Only when she came into her apartment at the end of the day

 to see the pot of crocuses on the window seat and feel the

 absence of the Box did she begin to feel a slight warming, a

 willingness to be graceful within the confines of her appre-

  

 tension-perhaps even a willingness to move outside it toward

 pleasure if she could find a way.

   "So, Marianne," she instructed herself, "you will not give

 him a dinner partner to shame him. He has done nothing at all

 to deserve that." It was a sense of pride which took her through

 the routines of bam and makeup, hairdress and clothing, and

 finally to the examination of self in the mirror. The dress had

 belonged to her mother, a simple, timeless gather of flowing

 silk, jade green in one light, twilight blue in another, utterly

 plain. The only dressy clothes she had were things salvaged

 from among Cloud-haired mama's things, trunks Papa had put

 in storage in her name, "Because you may want them someday,

 or may simply want to have them to remember her by." Some

 had been too fashionable then to be useful now, but there were

 a few things like this-blouses and shirts, ageless skirts, a

 topcoat which might have been illustrated in the morning paper,

 a wonderful sweep of lacy wool stole which would serve as a

 wrap. The only clothes Marianne had purchased in the last four

 years had been underwear and two pairs of shoes. Everything

 else was left over from undergraduate days or made over from

 Mama's trunks. If it came to a choice between clothing and

 the tiles for the kitchen.... She smiled. There was no choice.

   She looked good, she decided. Not marvelous or glorious

 or glamorous, but good. Clean, neat, attractive, and by no

 means shabby. So.

   Turning then from the mirror, she saw the line of light run

 down the silk from the curve of her breast, the flush of red

 mounting to her cheeks. Her hands trembled as she tugged the

 softly rounded neckline a little higher on her shoulders. She

 hadn't chosen this dress to be... hadn't... had. "Didn't," she

 said defiantly. "Did not." She reached for the closet door to

 pick something thicker, less clinging, less...

   Too late. She heard him coming up the stairs, the firm knock

 on the door. Put the best face on it possible.

   He made it no easier for her. He stood back, obviously

 admiring her, his eyes lighting up. "You look wonderful, a

 water nymph-what is it? A naiad. The color suits you. It

 makes you glow as though you had candles lit inside." He

 smiled, not knowing that the emotion he had roused in her was

  

 a quiet anger, at him, at herself. "I've brought your box back."

   Her mood of acceptance was waning, but he gave her no

 time to fret, placing the box on the table and opening it as he

 talked. "One Escher print," he said, busy unpacking. "One

 print of a Delvaux painting. One Eskimo carving, one Bantu

 carving, one bit of oriental charmery. One medicine pouch."

 He set them out for her as she stared.

   The Escher print was of a fish rising to the top of still water

 where leaves rested on the ripples and bare trees laid their

 shattered reflections. The Delvaux painting was of two young

 women walking in a well-lit street, clothed in high-necked

 white dresses, lamps all about, a nearby house streaming with

 light from windows and doors. The Eskimo carving was of a

 bird, a confluence of curving lines which said nest, rest, peace.

 The ebony carving was of a happy frog, and the oriental bit

 was of two mice chewing their way through a nut. He laid a

 medicine pouch beside the pot of crocuses, a bit of fluffy ermine

 skin, eagle feathers tied to it with turquoise beads and bits of

 coral. "American Indian," he said. "How does this collection

 of things suit you?"

   She considered them. Each of them separately was pleasant,

 unremarkable. Together-together they seemed to reach to-

 ward her with welcoming arms. "Safe," she offered at last.

 "Everything seems very natural and contented."

   "I like the young women in the Delvaux painting." He made

 a vast, smoothing gesture, as though wiping away the darkness.

 "Busy at lighting up their world. Light is a very powerful

 symbol in our religion, of course." He stood back from the

 picture and admired it. "Ah! I meant to hang them for you,

 but it will have to be when we return. Our reservation is for

 eight o'clock, and if we make a careful hurry, we will get there

 on time. The maitre d' to whom I spoke was most forthright.

 We must be on time or our table will be given away to those

 less foresighted but more prompt. Nothing would sway him,

 not even appeals to justice and the American Way. So. Your

 wrap? Lovely. Your purse? That is all you are carrying? Well,

 the young are the only ones who may travel so unencumbered.

 We go."

   She had no opportunity to tell him he need not hang the

  

 pictures, no opportunity to change her dress, no time to re-

 member she had wanted to change it. She was swept down the

 stairs-past Mrs. Winesap in the entryway, pretending to be

 much involved with her mailbox-and into the car before she

 could think of anything, already laughing somewhat helplessly

 at his nonsense.

   "Most cars available for rent," he announced, shutting her

 door, "are too large to be amusing or too small to be safe. I

 will not, however, join nine-tenths of your countrymen in the

 daily game they play with their lives. To meet my sense of

 prudence, you are required to ride in some ostentatious luxury,

 though I know you would prefer simplicity, being the kind of

 person you obviously are."

   She sank back into the seat, surrounded by velvet surfaces

 and leather smell. "I didn't know one could rent cars like this."

   "One cannot," he said with some satisfaction. "However,

 one can appear to be a potential buyer, with unimpeachable

 references, of course, thus gaining the temporary ownership

 of such a vehicle. One may even be a potential buyer, though

 I am uncertain whether the roads of Alphenlicht are wide enough

 for such extravagance."

   "You do have roads?" she asked in wide-eyed innocence.

   "You mock. Quite rightly. You will remember, however,

 that I told you we are beginning to build such things. We have

 even recently completed a hydroelectric plant, and there is an

 Alphenlicht radio station by which means the people may be

 informed of matters of mutual interest. Avalanche warnings.

 Things of that kind." He negotiated a tricky turn at the avenue

 with casual mastery, darting up the entrance ramp to fit them

 between two hurtling truck behemoths without seeming to no-

 tice he had done so. Marianne, who had braked in reflex, leaned

 back and relaxed. He was not going to kill them both. So much

 was obvious. "I rather like it," he purred, patting the dashboard

 with proprietary interest. "Do you think it appropriate for a

 Prime Minister?"

   She considered this judiciously. "Well, it is a little osten-

 tatious. But a Prime Minister should be, at least a little."

   "It will acquire importance when Aghrehond drives it. Agh-

 rehond does my driving; he is also my friend, first factotum

  

 of the republic, and the guardian Nestor of my youth. He will

 be enormously pleased with this machine. It will contribute to

 his already overpowering dignity."

   "You're going to buy it, then?"

   He cocked his head, considering. "If it continues to behave

 well. Have you noticed the tendency of some things to behave

 well at first, as though knowing they are on trial, only to turn

 recalcitrant and balky when they believe they have been ac-

 cepted?"

   Marianne flushed in the darkness. He had not been speaking

 of her, but she applied his words to her own case. She had

 behaved well when they had first met, an interesting experi-

 ence, a previously unknown relative, no troubling overtones,

 and she had felt free to be herself. Now she knew she was

 turning balky, for good reason, but he would not know that.

 Well, one could be balky without letting it appear on the sur-

 face. She commanded herself to be charming. He would find

 her charming. Her citadel might keep its portcullis down, but

 she would not be obvious about it. So she seduced herself with

 promises and turned her attention back to him with a newly

 kindled radiance.

   "I had a typewriter like that once," she said. "The only time

 it ever worked was in the repair shop where I bought it, and

 in the repair shop when I took it back-every time I took it

 back."

   He laughed. "I had a Jaguar XKE-you know the one? It

 has twelve cylinders and a complexity of electrical system

 beside which the space probes are models of simplicity. When-

 ever it went more than fifty kilometers from the garage where

 its mechanic waited, it had an electrical tantrum and stopped

 running. It was so very pretty, even standing still-which is

 what it mostly did-that I left it for a very long time in the

 garage, simply to look at it now and then. However, since it

 had not been purchased as sculpture, it seemed unwise to con-

 tinue giving it house room. I then put a curse upon the engineers

 who had designed it, and British Leyland went bankrupt soon

 thereafter."

   "You claim responsibility for that?" she asked, uncertain

 whether he was serious or not.

   "Absolutely." His voice was utterly serious. Then he turned

  

 and she saw his eyes. "Marianne, you are a good audience for

 my silliness. You are young enough almost to believe me."

   "No," she protested. "I didn't, really."

   "No," he echoed, "you almost did." Then his voice changed.

 "I could have done it, Marianne. A Magus could do such a

 thing. But it would be self-indulgent, and a Magus does not

 build his powers-or even retain them-by being self-indul-

 gent. Those who do so go by other names."

   She was surprised at this abrupt change of tone, evidence

 that something was on his mind other than the evening. How-

 ever, he gave her no time to brood over it, but reached across

 to the glove compartment to tug out a map which he dropped

 into her lap, stroking her knee with his hand. "Here, see if you

 can find where we are, and then tell me the exit number. I

 looked it up this afternoon, but I have forgotten it." His voice

 was a caress, as his touch had been, and she drew her stole

 around her, over her knees and thighs, all too aware of the

 place his hand had touched. Face flaming, she bent over the

 map, not noticing he had leaned to one side to see her face in

 the rear view mirror. He smiled, a smile of pleasure, but with

 something hungry and predatory in it.

   She searched the map for some time, calming herself with

 it. When she could trace their route, she found the exit number

 for him. "I've only been there once before," she said. "An old

 friend of my father's invited me to dinner there with his wife

 and daughter."

   "Were they good people? Did you enjoy it?"

   "I did. Yes. They had known my parents, and that was nice.

 My parents were wonderful people, and I like to remember

 them..."

   "Happily," he suggested. "You like to remember them hap-

 pily."

   "That's it. I usually have to remember them in some context

 of money or property because of Harvey, you know. And that

 isn't the same. It's certainly not happy."

   "Your affairs were left in his hands, you said."

   "I was only a schoolgirl. My mother's estate-rather a big

 one, from her father-was in papa's hands during his lifetime,

 but then it came to me. Except Harvey was executor. Oh, there's

 some man in a bank in Boston, and an attorney I've never

  

 seen, but Harvey is really the one who says yes or no. The

 others simply do what he tells them."

   "Ah," said Makr Avehl, in a strange voice. "They simply

 ... give consent."

   "Yes. And whenever Harvey says anything, he always says

 it is what Papa would have wanted. Which means it is what

 Harvey wants." She fell silent, flushing. "I feel very disloyal,

 talking about him this way."

   Makr Avehl, thinking of the contents of the box he had

 taken from her apartment, contented himself with silence. At

 that moment the hungry, predatory part of him withdrew, and

 a more thoughtful self examined Marianne's face with a quick,

 sideways look. "Blood is not always thicker than water, Mari-

 anne. Only when the ties of blood are equally strong on both

 sides is there any true kinship. Kinship can never be a one-

 way thing."

   "That's what Mrs. Winesap says. She says if I don't like

 him, I simply don't like him, and I shouldn't feel guilty about

 that."

   "I couldn't agree more. Mrs. Winesap is an eminently sen-

 sible woman. Also, she has your welfare at heart, and that

 makes her kin to you in a real way." He swung the car onto

 the exit ramp, then beneath the highway and onto a shore-

 bound road between budding trees fretted against the dusk.

 Lights faded around them, dwindling from hectic commercial

 to amber residential, soft among the knotted branches. It was

 quiet in the car, all traffic left behind them. Reflected in the

 waters of a little bay was the discreet sign in pink neon, "Wil-

 lard's." He parked the car and looked quickly at his watch.

 "On time. There will be no excuse to have given our table to

 anyone else."

   He took her from the car and into the place by her elbow,

 gently held. Their table was waiting, and Marianne gained the

 impression it would have been waiting had they not arrived

 until midnight. Makr Avehl waved the maitre d' away and

 seated her himself, his hands lingering on her shoulders as he

 arranged the stole on the back of her chair. She resolutely

 focused herself on the reflections in the water, on the candlelit

 interior, on anything else.

   When he had seated himself across from her, he said, "Shall

  

 we dispense with the usually obligatory cocktail? Do you

 know the origin of the word? It dates, I am told, from the early

 years of the nineteenth century in New Orleans where cognac

 was mixed with bitters using an old-style egg cup-called a

 coquetier-to measure the ingredients. From cah-cuh-tyay to

 cock-tay to cock-tail would have required only the slovenly

 enunciation of a half generation. Does that interest you? Not

 greatly." He grinned at her and pretended an interest in the

 menu. The meal had already been arranged for.

   When he had ordered for both of them, he leaned back and

 stared around him, a little arrogantly. "This ordering for one's

 guest is no longer an American custom, I know. But it is a

 custom I enjoy. So I command outrageous viands from kitchens

 across the breadth of the world if only to see how my com-

 panions will approach them. If what I have ordered does not

 appeal to you, now is the time to chastise me."

   "It sounds delicious," she said. "I don't mind at all. It's

 precisely what Papa always did."

  "And Harvey?"

  "I've never eaten in public with Harvey," she said stiffly.

 "I imagine he would be more... more showy about it."

   "I can hear him now," said Makr Avehl, putting on a pom-

 pous expression. " "The lady will have breaded cockscomb with

 the sauce of infant eel.' Then an aside to his companion: 'You'll

 love it, Juliet. I remember having it in Paris, during the Inter-

 national Conference of the Institute of Anthropology.' Like

 that?"

   "Like that," she agreed. "And then he'd watch her like a

 hawk to be sure she pretended to enjoy it."

   "Which she would do?" He nodded at the hovering wine

 steward.

   "Which they seem to do," she agreed. "I've never been able

 to figure out why."

   Across the table from her, he glittered with gentle laughter.

 The explosion of light seemed so real that Marianne actually

 blinked to avoid being blinded, then opened her eyes wide,

 astonished at her own childishness. It was only the blaze of

 something flambe' behind him, being made a great show of

 in a chafing dish. An obsequious waiter slipped behind her

 chair to place two additional wine glasses beside her plate,

  

 while the wine steward poured an inch of ruby light into Makr

 Avehl's glass. He sipped it, nodded, and Marianne's own glass

 dropped red jewels of light onto the table cloth.

   She sipped, smiled, sipped again. It had been a long time

 since she had had good wine. She had drunk it as a child, at

 Papa's side, learning to taste. Then she had gone away to

 school, and there had been no wine then or since. Her slender

 budget would not stretch to such indulgence, and she sipped

 again, lost in a haze of happy memory. A plate of pate appeared

 before her, almost magically, smelling succulently of herbs and

 shallots. She began to eat hungrily, not noticing his expression

 as he watched her. It was the expression of a lion about to

 pounce.

   But behind that expression a dialogue had begun, a familiar

 dialogue to Makr Avehl, one between the man and the Magus,

 with a word or two from that entity he called "the intruder."

 It began with the man saying, "I want this woman!" He said

 it impatiently. The man did not equivocate. He did not apol-

 ogize.

   "You will conduct yourself appropriately," replied the Ma-

 gus. 'This is a kinswoman. Even if she were not, there are

 indulgences inappropriate to a Magus!"

   And another voice, sibilant, hissing, "This is a complication

 we do not need at this time. This is foolishness, kinswoman

 or not. Be done."

   "She is fair," sang the man to himself, not listening to the

 voices. The wine was diluting their message, blurring their

 advice. "Fair. Lithe and lovely, dark of hair and pale of skin,

 curved as a warrior's bow is curved, straight as his arrow is

 straight. A warrior's trophy! A warrior's prize!"

   "A brigand's booty. A robber's spoils," threatened the Ma-

 gus."A poacher's trap," hissed the voice of dissent.

   "A lover's prize," the man amended, bending over his plate

 in a sudden access of warmth. He had not meant to say that.

 He had not used the word to himself for almost twenty years,

 not since he was nineteen and thought himself dying because

 someone else had died, died untimely, unforgiveably. He shut

 down the voices, apprehensive of the end of their colloquy.

 The food gave him something else to think about, but it led

  

  him into the trap once more. He looked up to see Marianne's

  lips curved to accept the edge of the glass, curved as though

  in a kiss, and his hands trembled.

    "Come now, Makr Avehl," he said to himself. "You are not

  a schoolboy any longer. You are not a lascivious youth, carried

  willy-nilly on naive curiosity's back, like Europa on the bull,

 tormented by lust into abandonment of all sense. Come, come.

 Let us talk of something else."

    "Did you really like the pictures I brought you?" he asked,

  seeing a well-trained hand slip the empty plate away from

 before him to replace it with another, noticing also that Mari-

 anne's glass was being refilled. His own was almost untouched.

   She did not answer at once, being occupied with napkin and

 glass. "That was duck," she said happily. "Lovely duck. All

 bits and pieces with swadges of truffle. I didn't know Willard's

 . was capable of that...."

   He did not tell her that the pate had been provided earlier,

 that Willard's was not capable of that, that no restaurant within

 five hundred miles was capable of that except the one which

 had provided the pate to his order. "The pictures?" he prompted.

   "The pictures. Well, the one of the fish is marvelous. One

 has a sense of the fish rising, and because the air above and

 the water below are all one, it is almost as though it could go

 on rising upward, forever. Like a balloon."

   Makr Avehl, who had not thought of this, was much taken

 with the feeling. "Exaltation?"

   "Yes. The feeling that one could go on up and up forever,

 but one would not need to. The surface is very nice, too. Well,

 I liked that one. The other one was more difficult. The young

 women are in the street, alone, but they are not threatened at

 all. There are lights around, in the house-which must be the

 house they live in-where people are waiting for them. Noth-

 ing horrible is coming. It's a special evening, and the girls are

 setting lights along the streets. They do that in Mexico, don't

 they? Set lights along the streets? Candles, in bags of sand? A

 kind of ritual in which the safe, lighted way is shown, I think.

 And that's the way it feels, a safe, lighted way."

   "Luminous," he suggested.

   She considered this over a spoonful of lobster bisque, turn-

 ing the idea with the other flavors on her tongue. "Not so much

  

 luminous as illuminated. Things which could be threatening or

 frightening are lighted up, made harmless, perhaps even shown

 to be attractive. That's what one wants, after all, to have the

 monsters shown to be nothing but paper cutouts, or shadows,

 or humped bushes which the light will show to be full of

 flowers."

   He nodded. "It's unfortunate the other group of things had

 such an unpleasant feel to it. Certain groupings can have that

 quality of foreboding or threat. I remember a particular place

 in the forest of Alphenlicht, trees, stones, some large leafed

 plants with waxy blooms. Taken individually, the trees are

 only trees. The stones are interesting shapes, taken each by

 each, and the plants are found in many boggy parts of the

 mountains. Taken as a whole, however, this particular clearing

 among the stones with the trees brooding above has a quality

 of menace."

   He shook his head, keeping to himself the question as to

 what kind of knowledge or study would have stimulated a

 person-any person-to have chosen the particular group of

 things he had found in the box. The knowledge was one matter

 but, in addition, what motivation would one have had? These

 questions were not merely interesting but compelling. He was

 most curious about the sly vileness in which he had given her

 the things one at a time, singly, so that her spirit would be led

 to accept them individually rather than take warning at the

 cumulative effect.

   Nonetheless, she had taken warning. Which told him some-

 thing more about her to make his lustful self pause. There was

 heritage here, the heritage of the Magi. "With whom," advised

 the Magus within, "it is wise not to trifle."

   He pursued this question. "You didn't like the things Harvey

 gave you. Did you tell me why?"

   She shrugged, spooning up the last of her bisque, sorry

 there was not more of it, so relaxed by the wine that she did

 not mind answering. "They made me feel slimy. Dirty. Not

 clean dirt, but sewer dirt. I've never been in a sewer, but I can

 imagine." She put her spoon down with regret. "The naked

 girl was the worst. That one made me angry. She was so...

 sacrificial."

   "Anger," he mused, nodding once more to the hovering

  

 waiter. "I have often wondered why anger is considered by

 some Western religions to be a sin. It is such a marvelous

 protection against evil." He examined her face, thinking of an

 old proverb of his people, often used to define perspicacity of

 a certain type: He can recognize the devil by his breathing. He

 thought it interesting that Marianne could recognize the devil

 by its breathing, and he wondered who the devil was. Well,

 he should not be too quick to identify.

   "The reason you found them unpleasant probably doesn't

 matter. We've taken care of it. It's likely that your brother

 would not even know the difference between the things he gave

 you and the substitutions I have made. He would undoubtedly

 be distressed to learn he had caused you a moment's appre-

 hension. There is certainly no reason to mention it to him."

   Marianne had had no intention of mentioning it. "You think

 I felt as I did about the things merely because Harvey gave

 them to me? That seems a little simplistic."

   "It's probably as good an explanation as we are going to

 get." He laughed with a good pretense of humor, watching as

 the second set of wine glasses were refilled. They would con-

 tinue with the Trockenbeerenauslese until dessert. He had

 chosen it for her, thinking she would prefer it, and was now

 regretful that he had not realized she would appreciate some-

 thing better. Still, it was a very fine wine, if not a preeminent

 one, and her glass was being refilled for the third time. Her

 face was flushed and happy, and she played idly with her fork,

 waiting for the salad. He went on, putting an end to the subject,

 "I suggest any further presents from your half brother be put

 in storage somewhere. Often we wish to be exorcised of demons

 we ourselves have allowed house room. That is an Alphenlicht

 saying, one my sister is very fond of."

   "I suppose she means demons of memory," said Marianne

 in an untroubled voice. "Of guilt, of vengeance. Things we

 dwell on instead of forgetting." In that moment, she felt she

 would not be bothered by such things again.

   He cursed at himself, not letting it show. The box had been

 no minor assault. She should be warned. Who was he to give

 her these platitudes instead of the harsh warning which was

 probably required? If he were to be true to his own conscience,

 he would explore the root of that corruption, find the cause,

  

 help her arrange a defense against it rather than deal her a few

 proverbs to placate her sense of danger. However, there was

 no way to do that without frightening her, and tonight was not

 the time, not the place, not with her glowing face across from

 him, candlelit, soft and accepting. When he knew her a little

 better-when he found out who was responsible. He did not

 believe it was her brother. The shallow, puffed-up ego which

 had looked at him out of Harvey S. Zahmani's eyes would not

 have been capable of the singleminded study necessary to select

 those individual gifts to make up such a synergistic power of

 evil. Well. It would wait. He would not destroy her pleasure

 tonight.

   Neither would he destroy his own planned pleasure for the

 weekend. He returned to his purpose.

   "Do you ride, Marianne?"

   "It was my passion once, if twelve-year-old girls may be

 allowed to have passions. I had a wonderful horse, Rustam. I

 loved him above all things. When he was sold, after Papa died,

 I cried for days. I never could tell it if was for Papa, or for

 Rustam. I think it was for Rustam, though. I had already cried

 for Papa."

   "That was at your home?"

   "Yes." She picked at the edges of her salad, a spiraling

 rosette of unfamiliar vegetables, intricately arranged. "I was

 just learning to jump. Rustam already knew how, of course,

 and he took great care to keep me on his back. I was always

 afraid I was in his way, hindering him."

   "Is it something you want to do again someday?"

   "Something I dream about. I would love to ride again, if I

 haven't forgotten how."

   "There is some particular affinity, I am told, between ad-

 olescent girls and horses. Some girls, I should say."

   "Some, yes. I was very conscious of being... well, what

 can one say? Not weaker, exactly, but less able to force myself

 upon the unimpressionable world. Less able, that is, than Papa,

 or Harvey. Mama didn't seem to care. There were things the

 men did which I simply couldn't understand. And yet, when

 I rode Rustam, the barriers were gone. I felt I could go any-

 where, through anything, over anything. That I would be car-

 ried, as on wings."

  

  The look she turned on him was full of such adoring memory

 that he clenched both fists in his lap, fighting down the urge

 to make some poetic outburst: "Oh, I would be your steed,

 lady. I would carry you to such places you have not dreamed

 of...." Instead, he hid his face behind his napkin, managed

 to say something in a half-choked voice about Pegasus, leaving

 the poetry unsaid though the words sang in him like the after-

 sound of a plucked string, reverberating, summoning sympa-

 thetic vibrations from his loins.

   "I asked," he said in a voice deliberately dry, "because the

 house which we have leased while we are in the country has

 attached to it an excellent stable. The people who own it are

 vacationing in the Far East, and they left us in complete pos-

 session of their own riding horses-that is, once they learned

 that we are not barbarians." He choked back a laugh, remem-

 bering the oblique correspondence which had finally established

 this fact to the satisfaction of the Van Horsts. "I do not want

 you to miss the opportunity to ride with us this weekend,

 Marianne. I do not want to miss the opportunity to ride with

 you. I have invited other people, good friends, people you

 would enjoy. You would not need to be in the company of your

 brother at all. I will beg you, importune you, please. Be my

 guest."

   She could not refuse him. Whether it was the wine, or the

 thought of the horses, or the candlelight, or his own face, so

 full of an expression which she refused to read but could not

 deny, she murmured, "If you're quite sure it won't be awkward

 for you if Harvey behaves oddly toward me. Perhaps he won't.

 I know I'm a little silly about him, sometimes."

   "Do you think he will be unpleasant company for my other

 guests?"

   "He can be charming," she said offhandedly. "I think he is

 only really unpleasant to me."

   "Do you know why?"

   She flushed, a quick flowing of red from brow to chin which

 suffused her face with tension. He saw it, snarled at himself

 for walking with such heavy feet where he did not know the

 way, did not give her time to reply.

   "Ah, here come the crabs. Now we shall see if this is indeed

 a delicacy or merely one of those regional eccentricities which

  

 litter the pathways of a true gourmet."

   "Gourmand," she said, relieved that the subject had been

 changed. "I think a gourmet would not eat soft-shelled crab.

 They are supposed to be an addictive indulgence, like popcorn."

   "I wasn't warned," he said in mock horror.

   "Be warned. I will fight you for them."

   Makr Avehl could not have said whether he liked the dish

 or not. He ate it. More of it than he would have eaten if alone.

 He drank little wine, afraid of it for the first time in his life,

 of what he might say unwarily, having already said the wrong

 thing several times over, afraid of what he might do that would

 frighten his quarry.

   "Quarry?" boomed the Magus, deep inside. "I warn you

 again, Makr Avehl. Kinswoman." He heard it as an echo of

 her own voice, "Be warned."

   Marianne had not expected the wine, was not guarded against

 it, did not notice as it flowed around the controls she had set

 upon herself, washed away the little dikes and walls of the

 resolutions she had made, let her forget it was to have been

 an evening of politeness only, without future, without over-

 tones. She felt herself beginning to glitter, did nothing at all

 to stop it, simply let it go on as though she were twelve once

 more, at the dinner table with Cloud-haired mama and Papa

 and their guests, full of happy questions and reasonably polite

 behavior, ready to be charmed and charming. 'Tell me about

 Alphenlicht," she demanded. "All about it. Not the politics,

 but how it smells and tastes. What it is like to live there."

   "Shall I be scholarly and give you the history? Or do you

 want a travelogue?" Gods but she is beautiful. In this light,

 her skin is like pearl.

   "Don't tell me how it got that way. Just tell me how it is."

 She licked her lips un-self-consciously, and he felt them on his

 own. He turned to look out the window and summon his wits.

   "Well, then. Alphenlicht is a small country. You know that.

 It is a mountainous one. There is no capital, as such. Instead,

 there are many small towns and villages gathered around the

 fortresses built by our ancestors, many of them on the sites of

 older fortresses built by the Urartians centuries before. Hilltop

 fortresses, mostly, with high stone walls topped by ragged

 battlements. They march along the flanks and edges of the

  

 mountains as though they had been built by nature rather than

 by man, gray and lichened, looking as old as forever.

   "Outside the walls, the towns straggle down the hillsides,

 narrow streets winding among clumps of walled buildings, half

 stable, part barn, part dwelling. We came from Median stock,

 remember. The Medes could never do without horses, and their

 houses were always surrounded by stableyards."

   "Hies," commented Marianne. "There would be lots of flies."

   "No," he objected. "We are not primitive. The litter from

 our stables enriches our farmland. Then, too, there is a constant

 smoky wind in Alphenlicht. We say it is possible to stand on

 the southern border of our country and know what is being

 cooked for supper on the northern edge. You asked what the

 country smells like, and that is it. Woodsmoke, as I have smelled

 here in autumn when the leaves are being burned; a smell as

 nostalgic among men as any I know of. A primitive smell,

 evoking the campfires of our most ancient ancestors." He thought

 about this, knowing it for a new-old truth.

   "Our houses are of stone, for the most part. We are self-

 consciously protective about our traditions, so we have a fond-

 ness still for glazed tile and many wooden pillars supporting

 ornate, carved capitals, often in the shapes of horses or bulls

 or mythical beasts. There is plaster over the stone, making the

 rooms white. The walls are thick, both for winter warmth and

 for summer cool, so windows are set deep and covered with

 wood screens which break the light, throwing a lace of shadow

 into our rooms. Floors are of stone for summer cool, but in

 winter we cover them with rugs, mostly from Turkey or Iran.

 Our people have never been great rug makers.

   "Ceilings are often vaulted, with wind scoops at the ends,

 to bring in the summer winds. In winter we cover them with

 stout shutters which seldom fit as well as they should. We say

 of an oddly assorted couple that they fit like scoop shutters,

 meaning that they do not..." He fell silent, musing, seeing

 his homeland through her eyes and his own words, as though

 newly.

   "What do you eat?" she asked, taking the last bite of her

 final crab. "I am not hungry any longer, but I love to hear

 about food."

   "Lamb and mutton. Chicken. Wild game. I have a particular

  

 fondness for wild fowl. Then, let me see, there are all the usual

 vegetables and grains. There are sheltered orchards along the

 foot of the snows where we grow apricots and peaches. We

 have berries and apples. There are lemon and orange trees in

 the conservatory at the Residence, but most citrus fruits are

 imported. We are able to import what we need, buying with

 the gems from our mines."

   "But no soft-shelled crab," she mourned. "No fish."

   "Indeed, fish. Trout from our streams and pools. For heav-

 en's sake, Marianne. How can you talk about food?"

   "What did you order for dessert?" she asked, finishing her

 wine.

   He nodded to the waiter once more. "Crepes, into which

 will be put slivers of miraculously creamy cheese from the

 Alphenlicht mountains, served with a sauce of fresh raspberries

 flamed in Himbeergeist and doused with raspberry syrup."

   "That sounds lovely." She sighed in anticipation.

   "It is lovely." He made a wry mouth, mimed exasperation.

 "Also unavailable here. We're having an orange souffle which

 is available here, which has been recommended by several

 people with ordinary, people-type appetites. Try a little of this

 sweet wine. It has a smell of mangoes, or so they say. I like

 the aroma, but I confess that the similarity escapes me."

   They finished the meal with inconsequential talk, together

 with more wine, with brandy. They had been at the table for

 almost four hours when they left, coming out into a chilly,

 clear evening with a gibbous moon rising above the bay to

 send long, broken ladders of light across the water.

   "I am at the middle of the whole world," Marianne hummed.

 "See how all the lights come to me."

   They stood at the center of the radiating lights, town lights

 on the point stretching to the north and east, island lights from

 small, clustered prominences to the east and south, the light

 of the moon.

   "If you can pull yourself out of the center of things," he

 said tenderly, "I'll take you home."

   The drive back was almost silent. Marianne was deeply

 content, more than a little drunk without knowing it, warmed

 by the wine, unsuspecting of danger. As for him, he was no

 less moved than he had been hours earlier, but that early im-

  

 petuous anticipation had turned to something deeper and more

 bittersweet, something like the pain of a mortal wound gained

 in honorable battle by a fanatical warrior. Heaven was guar-

 anteed to such a sufferer, but a kind of death was the only

 gateway. "Death of what?" he fretted, "of what? I have never

 been one to attach great esoteric significance to such matters!"

 He refused to answer his own question. Such metaphors were

 merely the results of wine-loquacity, a kind of symbolic babble.

 He concentrated on driving.

   When they arrived, he took her to the door and entered after

 her, saying "I'll hang those pictures before I leave you. No!

 Don't object, Marianne. I want to do it," riding over her weak

 protests to come close to her, making a long business of the

 stick-on hangers, standing back to see whether the pictures

 were straight, putting them where those others had been meant

 to go, one in her living room, the other by her bed. And she

 there, watching, bemused, almost unconscious, eyes fixed on

 the picture of the maidens setting out their lights, stroking her

 own face with the fluffy eagle feather tassle of the medicine

 bag he had brought her, as a child might stroke its face with

 the comer of a loved blanket, her whole expression dreamy

 and remote as though she merely looked in on mis present place

 from some distant and infinitely superior existence. Then she

 turned to him, and her eyes were aware, and desirous, and

 soft....

   He groaned, the man part breaking through his self-imposed

 barriers, groaned and took her into his arms, putting his mouth

 on hers, feeling her half-surprise, then the glorious liquid warmth

 of her pressed against him in all that silken flow as she returned

 the kiss. He dropped his lips to the hollow of her throat, heard

 her gasp as he pressed the silk away with his mouth to follow

 the swelling curve of her breast....

   And heard her cry as from some great distance, "Oh... not

 that way... chaos will win... all my battles lost.... Oh, to-

 morrow I will want to die."

   The words fell like ice, immediately chilling, making a

 crystalline shell into which he recoiled, immobilized, the Ma-

 gus within him seeing her face, the mouth drawn up into a

 rictus which could equally have been passion or pain, so evenly

 and indiscriminately mixed that he could not foretell the con-

  

 sequence of the feeling it represented.

   So then it was Magus, cold, drawing upon all his powers

 of voice and command, who took the feathers from her hand

 and drew them across her eyes, forcing the lids closed, chanting

 in his hypnotic voice, "Sleep, sleep. Dream. It is only a dream.

 A little, lustful dream. It will be forgotten in the morning.

 Order rules. Your battles will all be won. Makr Avehl is your

 friend, your champion, your warrior to fight your battles beside

 you. Sleep...." All the time afraid that the voice would fail

 him, that his man self had so undermined his Magus self as to

 make his powers impotent.

   But they were not. She slumped toward him, and he caught

 her as she fell, placing her upon her bed. When he left her a

 few moments later it was with a feeling of baffled frustration

 and disoriented anger, not at her, not even much at himself,

 but at whatever it was, whoever it was who set this barrier

 between them. He mouthed words he seldom used, castigated

 himself. "Fool. You knew there was something troubling her,

 something you have no knowledge of, but you tramp about

 with your great bullock's feet, treading out her very heart's

 blood...." For there had been that quality in her voice which

 had in it nothing of coquetry but only anguish. "Idiot. Get out

 of here before you do any more damage."

   But he could not leave until he had written her a note, folding

 it carefully. When he shut the door behind him, he turned to

 push it under the door, as though he had returned after leaving

 her. She would not remember anything of his-of his impor-

 tunate assault. He had never felt so like a rapist for so little

 reason, and his sense of humor began to reassert itself as he

 went down the stairs. She might accuse herself in the morning,

 but it would only be of drinking a bit too much. She could

 accuse herself, or him, of nothing else.

   "And I will find out, will find out what it is makes her act

 like this."

   A voice hissed deep within. "Of course, it may be she simply

 does not find you attractive."

   "Be still. It isn't that. It isn't that at all. What it is is a

 threat. Desire-sex-a threat. Not merely the usual kind of

 threat which any intimacy makes to one's individuality, to one's

 integrity, no. More than that. Something real is threatening her,

  

 and I am walking around the edges of it."

   He sat for a long time with his head resting on the wheel,

 continuing the mood of part castigation, part determination. At

 last, when he was more calm, he drove away. Behind him in

 the lower window of the house, Mrs. Winesap twitched the

 curtain back into place, an expression of sadness on her face.

 She had been sure that this man would not have stayed so short

 a time.

  

 IF IT HAD not been a working day, she would have slept until

 noon. Since it was a working day, she struggled awake at the

 sound of the alarm, conscientiously set before she left her room

 the evening before. There was something hazy, misty in her

 mind, the lost feeling one sometimes gets when a recent dream

 departs, leaving a vacancy. She shook her head, trying to re-

 member. There had been a good deal of amusement and laugh-

 ter the night before, a good many soft-shelled crabs, pate", wine

 ... oh yes, wine. Her head ached a little, not badly, as though

 she might have slept with her neck twisted. She rubbed at it,

 noticing for the first time that she was naked among the sheets.

 Good lord, there must have been a lot of wine. Her clothing

 was laid across the chair. At least she had had the wits to

 undress. She couldn't remember anything about it. Wrapping

 herself in a robe, ignoring the protest of bare feet on the cold

 bathroom floor, she brushed her teeth, drenched her face in a

 hot towel, pulled a brush through her hair. Thus fortified, she

 had the courage to look at herself in trepidation. The feared

 bleary eyes and reddened nose were not in evidence. Well then,

 perhaps she had only been what Cloud-haired mama was wont

 to call "being a little tiddly."

  

   She was still half asleep when she went to the front window

 to begin her daily monitoring of conditions of order and dis-

 ruption. The white square on the carpet brought her fully awake.

   Marianne, my dear: 1 forgot to tell you that my driver,

 Aghrehond, will pick you up on Saturday morning, about 9:00.

 My sister, Ellat, conveys her delight that you will be with us.

 She will be your chaperone and constant companion. No one

 will be given any excuse to criticize. All will be very proper.

 If you do not have riding clothes, Ellat can provide them. I

 look forward to the weekend with much pleasure. Thank you

 for a lovely evening.

   She read this twice, confused. So she had agreed to spend

 the weekend in Wanderly after all. How could his sister have

 known, if he had left this note just last night? Last night? She

 shook her head again, so confused that she did not see the last

 word on his note. He had thought long before adding it, not

 truly sure that he meant it. He would have been much discom-

 fitted to know she did not even see it. She crumpled the note.

 Lord. Riding clothes. Of course, she did have Mama's. And

 riding clothes didn't change from generation to generation. She

 would have to do some washing-and then there would be

 dinner. They would undoubtedly dress for dinner-if not for-

 mally, at least up. Could she wear the silk again? She stood,

 lost in thought, only reluctantly realizing that the phone was

 ringing.

   "Marianne?" Harvey at his most charming. Everything within

 her leapt up and assumed a posture of defense. "I wanted to

 thank you for telling me about Zahmani. I knew my aunt, that

 is, Madame Delubovoska, was in the States, but I had no idea

 that anyone would be here from Alphenlicht. I went down to

 New York to see her yesterday, and I met him. Evidently he's

 taken a country place not far from you while he's here in the

 U.S. I've been invited for the weekend." The voice was gloat-

 ing a little, oleaginous.

   "Yes," she stumbled slightly. "I know."

   Silence. Then, "Oh? How did you know?"

   "I've been invited as well. Did you accept the invitation?"

 Dangerous ground. She could feel his attention hardening as

 he fixed it on her. Until this conversation she had never heard

 him mention his aunt from Lubovosk. The silence stretched,

  

 almost twanging with strain. "I'm going, of course," she said,

 more to break the silence than for any other reason.

   "Marianne, you're obviously not awake. I dislike it when

 you sound muddled. I think you should take a few minutes to

 discuss this."

   She was honestly dumbfounded. "What is there to discuss?

 I've already accepted the invitation. It was very nice of him

 to ask me."

   "We have to discuss," he said in a voice of ice, "whether

 it's appropriate for you to go at all."

   Ordinarily, I would come unhinged at this point, .she thought,

 but this is not ordinarily. I am 1001 points ahead. I had a lovely

 evening. The girls in the picture on my wall are setting lights

 in the street. I have a real medicine bag full of good influences

 protecting my home. "I'm sorry you have any concern about

 it," she said in a voice that sounded unflustered. "I've accepted.

 Please don't be disturbed on my account, Harvey. His sister is

 staying with him, and he assures me that it will be quite proper."

   Silence.

   Silence.

   Oh, Lord, she thought. I've really done it. He will be so

 angry he'll cut off my allowance altogether and tell me to give

 up school entirely. Whoops, there goes the graduate degree.

   Ice voice. "I'm sure it will be quite proper. I'll look forward

 to seeing you there, Marianne. Try to dress appropriately. I

 hate it when you embarrass me." Gentle return of the phone

 to the cradle, buzz on the line, Marianne sitting up in bed,

 staring at the wall.

   "Harvey, if you do anything mean about my money, I'll go

 directly to the head of your department at the university and

 tell him you tried to rape me when I was thirteen." She said

 this to the wall, almost meaning it. She did not know where

 the idea had come from. She had not thought of any such

 reprisal before. "Blackmail Harvey?" she wondered at herself.

 "I suppose I could try it. Would he tell the world it was all my

 fault?"

   Well, let him tell the world it was all the fault of a thirteen-

 year-old girl. Ten years ago people might have believed that.

 Ten years ago people actually wrote that fathers and older

 brothers weren't to blame for sexually abusing six-year-olds

  

 because the little girls were "seductive." Public opinion on the

 subject of rape and child abuse and incest had changed a lot

 in the last ten years. She considered. One could make quite a

 case. His succession of Cheryls and Randis were very, very

 young. An occasional one might be under eighteen. The ques-

 tion could be asked. It would stir up quite a storm. On the

 other hand, Harvey would probably devote all his resources to

 proving that she, Marianne, was a maladjusted, possibly neu-

 rotic spinster with an overactive imagination.

   "Oh, Lord," she said. "I don't want to do that."

   "You don't want to drop out of school, either," her inner

 self replied. "One more semester, and the doctorate is yours,

 Mist Princess. One more semester, and you can go hunting for

 a teaching job somewhere. Out in public. With people."

   As always, when she reached that point in her rumination,

 she stopped thinking about it entirely. It was one thing to get

 the degree; it was something else to figure out what she was

 going to do with it. That was what Harvey always meant when

 he said she was not a serious student. She didn't really want

 to teach, or write, or do research. What she really wanted to

 do was work with horses, or maybe with animals in general.

 When she had been twelve, she had been sure that she would

 be a veterinarian. It had been all she could talk about, all she

 planned for.

   "What am I going to do with a degree in ethnology?" There

 was no answer. "One day at a time," she said. "Just take it

 one day at a time." This day, for example. A Friday. Which

 passed, as such days do, interminably but inevitably.

   When Makr Avehl's driver, a pleasantly round man, arrived

 on Saturday morning, she gave him her suitcase and followed

 him to the big car somewhat apprehensively. She had repudiated

 the blackmail idea, reflecting that she was almost certainly not

 strong enough to see it through, and she was feeling the lack

 of any effective strategy to protect herself against Harvey during

 the weekend. On the other hand, driven by his nastiness on the

 phone, she had taken most of the money carefully saved for

 the new kitchen tile and blown it on the two new outfits in her

 suitcase, both extremely becoming. After all, Makr Avehl had

 said there would be a lot of other people around, and Harvey

 might not be able to do to her in public what he invariably did

  

 in private. She did not have long to dwell on these various

 concerns before she was distracted from her worries by the

 man named Aghrehond.

   "You may sit in the back in lonely privacy, miss," he said

 to her gravely. "Or you may sit in front with me. I shall ask

 you very many impertinent questions to improve my English,

 which as you can tell is already very good, and you shall reprove

 me."She was amused, as he had intended. "Why should I reprove

 you?"

   "I have a curiosity unbecoming a person of lower rank. Here

 in America they pretend there is no rank, so I can indulge

 myself with-what is the word I want?-impunity. Faultless-

 ness. Correct? It will give me bad habits, however, when I

 return to the land of the Kavi. Where you call Alphenlicht."

 He looked at her hopefully, and Marianne gestured at the front

 seat, indicating she would share it with him.

   When they had reached the highway and were headed south

 at a conservative speed, he said, "You may call me Green.

 This is what part of my name means, and it is much easier to

 say than Ah-Gray-Hond. Green sounds almost English. Just as

 Makr Avehl sounds very Scottish when it is said quickly. Mac-

 ravail. That is a good name for a chieftain, isn't it? Green is

 a good name for a butler. I am also a butler and secretary and

 man who does a little of everything. What you would call..."

   "A handyman," she suggested.

   He shook his head. "No. That is one who does repairing of

 tilings. I mean something else. I am not good at repairing

 things. If this car should stop itself, we would be quite forsaken

 until someone came to help us. A tiny nail, even, I will hit

 my thumb instead."

   "Me, too," she confessed. "I'm always stopping up my

 garbage disposer. I can't make staplers work for any length of

 time. They always jam."

   "Ah. That surprises me. I think perhaps you have been

 victim of an adverse enchantment, a small annoyance spell

 perhaps, nothing very dangerous. For me, mechanical things

 work well, always, it is only I am clumsy with my hands. You,

 now, will not have such trouble in future. I am sure our Varuna

 will take care of this."

  

   "Your-who?"

  "Ah. Makr Avehl. The-Prime Minister, they say. Mis-ter-

 Zah-man-ee. In the land of Kavi we say 'Sir' or 'the Zahmani.'

 'Varuna' is like-oh, a powerful priest. Very mighty, and a

 great man. Good to listen to. But I beat him playing cribbage.

 He is what you would call a very lousy cribbage player."

   "I don't play cribbage," Marianne admitted.

   "I will teach you," he said with enormous satisfaction, turn-

 ing off the highway as he did so. They were traveling between

 tree-lined fields, white-fenced, velvet green and decorated with

 horses. "When you come to Alphenlicht, there are long winter

 times with nothing to do. Then we will play cribbage."

   "Am I to come to Alphenlicht?"

   "Most assuredly. You are one of the Kavi. One has only to

 look in your face to see that. Do not all the Kavi come to their

 own land? Most certainly. Makr Avehl will see to it."

   She was still amused. "What if I don't want to go?"

   "You will want to go. The Kavi always want to go."

   "Is that woman-Madame Delubovoska-is she one of the

 Kavi?" she asked, unprepared for his response to this more or

 less innocent question.

   He screeched the car to a halt, wiped his face repeatedly

 with a handkerchief. "Listen," he said at last, "the Varuna has

 asked her to come to him for the weekend. This is a very

 dangerous thing. He knows this, now, maybe too late. That

 woman, she is... there is a word. Someone who does not care

 about anyone? Who takes other people and... uses them up?

 There is a word?"

   "A psychopath? A sociopath?" offered Marianne, doubting

 that this was what he meant. It evidently was exactly what he

 meant, for he nodded repeatedly, still mopping his face and

 neck.

   "That is it. Listen to me. Makr Avehl is wise, oh, very wise

 and great. Truly a Varuna for his people. So wise. But not

 smart sometimes, I think. Sometimes I think I am smarter. He

 says so, too. When I win at cribbage, he says so. So, it may

 be this woman is a Kavi. One time certainly her people were

 so. Now, is she? Or has she done forbidden things so not to

 be called Kavi anymore? Makr Avehl, he must know, he says.

 So, he asks her to come spend the weekend, so he can talk to

  

 her, listen to her, find out. Now, listen. I do not think it is

 smart to have you come at the same time. Not a smart move.

 So, you be careful. Do not ask any questions where she can

 hear you. Be a simple, pretty little kinswoman except when

 you are alone with Makr Avehl. Or me, of course."

   He had frightened her rather badly, and she huddled in her

 corner of the front seat while he pulled the car back onto the

 road and continued their journey. They had entered a forest,

 and the light splashed through the windshield at them, broken

 by leaf lace into glimmering spatters. "What do you mean,

 forbidden things?" she asked at last.

   He shook his head. "Do you know Zurvan?"

   She told him what she had heard at the lecture. "That's all

 I know. Zurvan is your god."

   "More than that. Both male and female is Zurvan. Both

 dark and light. Both pain and joy. One who includes all. In

 balance. Now, if somebody tried to upset the balance, to make

 more dark than light, that would be forbidden. That person

 would not be Kavi. When you are alone with Makr Avehl, you

 ask about the shamans. You know that word?"

   She nodded, amazed at this tack and scarcely believing that

 she was listening to this odd talk.

   "Russia has lots of black shamans," he said. "In places

 where the government does not go. There are places like that,

 even in Russia. Forests, deep chasms in wooded places. So,

 now Lubovosk has shamans, too. They say they don't need

 any religion there, you know. Not in Russia, no." He laughed

 as though this were very funny. "But still, they brought those

 black shamans to Lubovosk. To learn, do you suppose? Or to

 teach. Or, maybe, just to make a great confusion. Anyhow,

 you be a quiet inconspicuous person and don't make that woman

 pay much attention to you." They drove on for a time in silence.

   "Can the Kavi-can Makr Avehl do tricks? I mean," she

 said hastily, seeing his expression of disapproval, "can he do-

 supernatural things?"

   "What sort of things? Kavi can do many very wonderful

 things, certainly."

   "Could he-oh, could he deliver a letter into a locked room?

 Could he make a phone hook itself up so that he could call

 someone?"

  

   Aghrehond laughed. "Oh, these are only little things. Of

 course. Any Kavi could do simple things like these. What is

 it, after all, but moving something very small?" He went on

 chuckling to himself, and she could not tell if he were teasing

 her or not. He drove for a few miles in silence, then pointed

 away to the right. "There is the house we have rented for this

 season. Not so beautiful as the Residence in Alphenlicht, but

 very nice."

   It glowed gently in the morning sun, white-columned over

 its rose brick, gentled with ivy, stretching along the curve of

 the hill in wide, welcoming wings. Makr Avehl had not yet

 returned from his business in New York, she was told, but she

 felt no lack of welcome as Aghrehond introduced her to Ellat

 Zahmani, Makr Avehl's sister, a stout middle-aged woman with

 a charming smile who offered her a second breakfast, a sun-

 drenched library, a brief expedition on horseback, or a walk

 around the gardens. Laughing, Marianne accepted the second

 breakfast and a walk in the gardens. It was there that Makr

 Avehl found them.

   He kissed Ellat on the cheek, then Marianne, in precisely

 the same way, so quickly that she could not take alarm. "Agh-

 rehond has gone to the train to meet your brother," he said.

 'Tahiti will arrive later this afternoon. I think we will not call

 her Tahiti, however. We will be very dignified, very political,

 very correct. We will all say Madame Delubovoska."

   "I will keep very quiet," Marianne said. "Your cribbage

 partner suggested it."

   "You see!" Ellat's voice was serious. She shook her head.

 "Makr Avehl, I'm not alone in thinking this is a mistake. Bad

 enough to invite her, but to have the child here-forgive me,

 Marianne, I know you're not a child, but anyone younger than

 I am gets called a child when I am feeling motherly-to have

 the child here may stir her up. She's not likely to enjoy the

 idea of reinforcements. An American Kavi? She'll hate the

 idea."

   "What is a Kavi?" demanded Marianne. "Green used that

 word. Am I one? How did I get to be one?"

   "Ah, well," Makr Avehl drew them together. "Your father,

 dear Marianne, was a Kavi. Almost certainly. I'm not abso-

 lutely sure, can't be until I check the library at home, but I

  

 think he was a cousin whose family left Alphenlicht some fifty

 years ago. They came to America with a few relatives. There

 may have been some intermarriage. Now, I am sure who your

 mother was. She was the daughter of an official in the Al-

 phenlicht embassy in Washington. All of these people were-

 or could have been-Kavi, which is simply our name for the

 hereditary family which governs Alphenlicht. Some consider

 it a kind of dynasty, others a kind of priesthood, but it means

 no more than you wish it to in your case. It was what I had in

 mind when I called you a kinswoman. Do you mind?"

   "Is Harvey one?"

   Makr Avehl shook his head. "We generally think of lineage

 as coming through the mother. When we use the word Kavi,

 we don't only mean bloodlines, we mean other things, too-

 matters of belief and behavior. No; I much doubt your half

 brother could be Kavi."

   Ellat obviously thought this might have upset Marianne, and

 she started to explain. "In Lubovosk, after the separation, there

 was a good deal of racial mixing with another line."

   "Shamans?" nodded Marianne.

   "There," exclaimed Ellat. "Aghrehond talks too much, Makr

 Avehl. He can't learn to keep his mouth shut."

   "I think I'm the culprit, Ellat. Marianne and I had occasion

 to discuss shamans in another context. Yes. Black shamans,

 devil worshipers. We don't use the word 'Kavi' for any of that

 line. I suppose Aghrehond told you to be prudently quiet about

 all this with Tahiti here?"

   "Yes, he told me. The problem is, I don't know how you're

 going to avoid the subject. Devil worship, shamanism and

 similar things happen to be Harvey's favorite professional topic,

 and he'll be after it like a cat after a mouse."

   "Is that so? I hadn't considered that. I knew, of course, that

 he has written on the subject of Alphenlicht-I've read some

 of it. But I hadn't thought that his interest extended to Lubo-

 voskan cultural attributes... .Well, of course it would. His

 kinfolk are there! I wonder how old he was when he first met

 them? When he first learned of them? How old was he when

 his mother died?"

   "It seems to me he was ten or eleven. Old enough to resent

 Papa Zahmani marrying again so soon, only a year later. I

  

 know Harvey went to Lubovosk or somewhere over there when

 he was twenty-one or -two." He had been back only briefly

 when Mama had died. She would not forget that. "The trip

 was a graduation present from Papa. Then, I know he went

 again, that same year, just before Papa died."

   "Well then, he will be well up on the subject, and we may

 expect him to raise issues which we would prefer not to discuss

 in the company we will have. I'll take him in hand at lunch.

 Ellat, you'll have to manage him tonight. Divert him."

   "If you have any very pretty guests," suggested Marianne,

 "that might do it."

   Ellat shook her head, frowning. "The Winston-Forbeses are

 coming to dinner tonight. Their daughter is very attractive, but

 very young."

   "He'll like that," said Marianne, without thinking and with-

 out seeing the odd, distracted look which Makr Avehl fixed on

 her. "The younger, the better."

   It seemed for a time that she might have been concerned

 about nothing. Harvey arrived in the big car, chatting with

 Aghrehond as though they were old friends. He greeted Makr

 Avehl with courtesy, Ellat with gallantry, Marianne with a proper

 peck on the cheek and a smile which only she could have

 recognized as ominous.

   Marianne took a deep breath and put herself out to be pleas-

 ant. "How was the trip down, Harvey? Is there a station near?"

   "About half an hour away. It was a very pleasant trip. Very

 kind of you to have asked me and my little sister down, sir.

 As a sometime student, Marianne does not often get this kind

 of treat." Charming smile. Guileless voice. Sometime student.

 Marianne fumed impotently.

   "You're most welcome, Professor Zahmani," Ellat being

 equally charming. "Your sister honors our home, and you we

 welcome because of your interest in our part of the world. Do

 come in. You have just time to erase the stains of travel before

 lunch."

   "I'll show him in, Ellat. Professor, I wanted to talk with

 you about that paper you did in the Journal of Archaeology-

 last June was it?-comparing the Cave of Light with the barsom

 prophecies of the Medes...." And Makr Avehl led Harvey

 away into the upper reaches of the house, still talking.

  

   Ellat squeezed her arm. "Don't worry. We have two other

 couples as luncheon guests."

   "Tahiti?"

   "Not until much later this afternoon. She is driving down.

 Now we will enjoy our lunch. Makr Avehl has told me his

 impulsive invitation to your brother-no, it is a half brother,

 only, isn't it?-well, that this invitation brings us a guest who

 turns out to be unwelcome. I am glad you overcame your dislike

 of him enough to come. We will stay well apart from him, and

 Makr Avehl will keep him occupied."

   And he did keep him occupied all during lunch, Harvey so

 far forgetting himself at times as to let his voice rise in tem-

 peramental disagreement. Makr Avehl received these expos-

 tulations gravely, nodding, commenting, smiling. Harvey was

 certainly not getting the better of the argument, but the sound

 of his sharp-edged voice made Marianne shift uncomfortably

 in her chair.

   Ellat nudged her knee. "Don't worry about it. So far they

 haven't gotten past the fifth century A.D. They're still talking

 about King Khosrow's persecution of the heretics."

   "How can you tell?"

   "It's what Makr Avehl always talks about when he doesn't

 want to talk about something else," she smiled. "Even Prime

 Ministers and High Priests are men, and men are somewhat

 predictable, you know. Besides, he lectures. He has this dread-

 ful habit of pontificating at great length about things others

 don't care about. Hadn't you noticed?"

   "He does a little," Marianne admitted, "but I don't really

 mind. The things he has to say are interesting."

   "Even if you were not interested, he would still wave his

 finger at you and tell you all about it. I tell him, 'Makr Avehl,

 try to listen sometimes. When you cease talking and there is

 only silence, it is because you have ended all conversation.'

 He only laughs at me. Sometimes, I think, he tries to do better,

 but he forgets. I tell myself it is because he is shy."

   "Shy? The Prime Minister? Shy?"

   Ellat gave her a conspiratorial look. "Yes. Shy. He talks at

 such great length about impersonal things to avoid worrying

 about people. Oh, I have seen him spend great hours thinking

 up tortuous reasons why people behave as they do, all because

  

 he will not admit they are simply ignorant, or silly, or tired.

 He is a great one for explanations, Makr Avehl, but only when

 he must. Most times he would rather not think about people.

 They confuse him."

   This was a new thought for Marianne, and she glanced at

 Makr Avehl, catching the brilliant three-cornered smile he threw

 her way and feeling her face flushing as it seemed to do each

 time she looked at him. Shy. Well. It was an explanation,

 though not one she was sure she believed. Perhaps Ellat was

 only teasing her.

   She turned to the guest on her other side and smiled mon-

 osyllabic responses to a long, one-sided conversation about

 politics, turning back to Ellat in relief a little while later. "That

 poor woman on Makr Avehl's other side isn't getting into the

 conversation much." She was watching the woman covertly, a

 quiet woman with a quiet, impressionable face.

   "That poor woman is the LaPlante Professor of Archaeology

 at the University of Ankara. I wouldn't worry about her. She

 will probably write some paper in one of the journals taking

 issue with your half brother on some abstruse academic sub-

 ject."

   "Good Lord! Does Harvey know who she is?"

   "I doubt it. Makr Avehl introduced her as Madame Andami.

 That's her husband across the table from you. He's very deaf

 and makes no attempt at conversation, but he enjoys food very

 much. I like them a good deal. She is interesting and he is

 restful. However, Madame Andami is not the name she uses

 professionally."

   "So Harvey has been set up to make a fool of himself. Do

 I get the impression you all do not like my brother much?"

   Ellat looked shocked. "What would make you say such a

 thing? I think Makr Avehl knows that you do not like him very

 much. He knows this so well that he spent most of an hour on

 the phone with me yesterday, talking of you, and of your half

 brother. Very serious talk. So I cannot tell you not to take him

 seriously, as I might tell some other young thing. A gentle

 warning, you know the kind of thing? No, to you I say some-

 thing else again. He may seem to be invulnerable and very

 strong. Sometimes he is very strong indeed, but he is not

 invulnerable." She gave Marianne a meaningful look which

  

 confused her enormously, then giggled, unexpectedly, an al-

 most shocking sound coming from that dignified person. "So,

 even if we are sympathetic to your side of whatever problem

 brews, we have done nothing Professor Zahmani could com-

 plain of. If he is not civil enough to converse across the table

 and find out what his luncheon partner does-well, what occurs

 thereafter must be his fault, no?"

   Marianne, being human, found the thought of Harvey's dis-

 comfiture very pleasant indeed.

   After lunch, Makr Avehl suggested that they all go riding.

 Harvey had not brought riding clothes. He demurred, explain-

 ing that he would be happy spending a few quiet hours in the

 library. The others left him there with Ellat while they went

 into the afternoon sun and the freshness of spring. Madame

 Andami cast aside her quiet, listening pose and rode like a

 centaur, laughing when Marianne complimented her on her

 seat. "I have ridden donkeys, mules, camels, even elephants.

 You have not a bad seat yourself, young woman."

   "I haven't really ridden in years. Before my mother died

 we lived in the country, and I had my own horse. I still miss

 him."

   "Ah, horses are a very great love to many girls of that age.

 I have been told it is something very Freudian."

   "I don't think so," laughed Marianne. "I think it is at that

 age that boys begin to grow so much bigger and stronger, and

 we girls feel left out. On the back of a horse, one ignores the

 fact that one is female."

   "You dislike being female?"

   "Not really. It just makes... complications."

   In midafternoon they were met at the end of a curving lane

 by Aghrehond, splendid in a plaid waistcoat, who offered them

 champagne and fruit from the tailgate of a station wagon before

 they returned by a more direct route, Makr Avehl riding at

 Marianne's side.

   "I did not wish to appear to monopolize your attentions

 earlier," he said. "But now, we have only a little way back to

 the house, and I can have you all to myself while the others

 go on ahead in such impatience. You got on very well with

 Madame Andami."

   "I like her. She was telling me about her work in Iran,

  

 before everything there went up in smoke. The places have

 such wonderful names. Persepolis. Ecbatana. Susa. I read about

 them in school, of course, though it's not an area of the world

 I have done any reading on recently."

   "They have about them something of the fictional, isn't that

 so? They were real, nonetheless. To us it does not seem that

 long ago, possibly because our children hear stories told around

 the fire of things which happened fifteen centuries back. Such

 stories carry an immediacy one does not get from books...."

   "Which is why some countries carry such old grudges,"

 offered Marianne. "What children learn at their grandmas' knees,

 they act upon as though it happened yesterday."

   He nodded gravely, even sadly. "Perhaps that is true. Those

 who have an oral tradition full of old wrongs and old revenge

 do seem to fight the same battles forever. If the Irish were not

 forever singing of their ancient wrongs-or writing poetry

 about it... well, we see the result in every morning's news-

 papers,"

   "Is that the kind of thing between Alphenlicht and Lubo-

 vosk? Or would you rather not talk about it?"

   "Stories told at my grandma's knee? Oh, yes, Marianne.

 For my grandma remembered it happening. The country was

 always like the two halves of an hourglass, connected with a

 narrow waist, a high mountain pass which was difficult in the

 best of times. To separate us, Russia had only to take that pass.

 Then the northern bit became a 'protectorate.' The general's

 name was Lubovosk-thus the name of the country. Later, of

 course, it became a 'people's republic.' Under either name it

 was high, and remote, and difficult to reach. Grandmother told

 me that at first we paid no attention. We continued to go back

 and forth from north and south, but we had to go over the

 mountain instead of across the pass. Then there began to be

 changes in Lubovosk. The visitors who came from there came

 to stay. Visitors from Alphenlicht who went there didn't return.

 There were whispers, rumors of evil."

  "Aghrehond said I could ask you about shamans, but not

 when others were about."

  The expression on his face was one of embarrassment, al-

 most shame. "Yes. I am ashamed to say it. Black shamans,

 from the land of the Tungus. Dealers in necromancy. People

  

 who would trifle with the great arts. Dealers in sorcery. Ah.

 You don't believe in any of this, do you?"

   "It's not... it's not anything I've ever thought about except

 as... as..."

   "As a part of the superstitions of primitive peoples? Perhaps

 as survivals in the modern world? Little unquestioned things

 we learn as children? Fairy tales? No, you needn't apologize.

 Let me explain it to you in a way you will understand.

   "Let us say a woman is driving a car. There is an accident,

 and her child is pinned beneath that car. She is a little woman,

 but she lifts that car and frees her child. You know of such

 things happening, yes? Well, let us suppose that before she

 lifted the car, she danced widdershins around the spare tire and

 called upon the spirits of the internal combustion engine, then

 raised up the car to rescue her child. Do you follow what I

 say?"

   "You mean the first thing is unusual, but natural. The second

 thing we would call magic?"

   He beamed at her. "Precisely. The same thing happened in

 both cases, but only in one would we call it magic. There is

 much of which man is capable, much he is unaware of, all

 very natural. The worshipers of Zurvan, the Magi, are scholars

 of this knowledge. The shamans, too, are scholars, but they

 use the knowledge in a different way. They teach that the power

 comes through the ritual, through dancing around the spare

 tire. They teach, when they teach at all-which is not often,

 for they prefer to be mysterious-that the power comes through

 demons, godlings, devils. They teach that in order to obtain

 the power, it is necessary to propitiate these devils. Followers

 of Zurvan teach that the power is simply there. We may use

 rituals to help us focus our thoughts, but we know they are

 simply devices, not necessary functions. Am I making any

 sense to you at all?"

   "You mean that their demons and devils don't really ex-

 ist. ..."

   He shook his head, reached over to touch her hands where

 they lay loosely gripping the reins, his face dappled with sun-

 light as he leaned toward her. "Would not exist, Marianne,

 except for them. The act of worship, of invocation, can bring

  

 things into being which did not exist of their own volition-

 temporary demons, momentary gods."

   His intensity made her uncomfortable. "Isn't it all more or

 less harmless?" she said, trying to minimize the whole matter.

 "Mere superstition? Regrettable, but not... not..."

   "Not dangerous? When the ritual demands blood, or maim-

 ing, or death, or binding forever?" His voice had become aus-

 tere, his expression forbidding and remote. "The difference

 between a true religion-and there are many which share as-

 pects of truth-and a dangerous cult is only this: In the one

 the individual is freed to grow and live and learn; in the other

 the individual is subordinated to the will of a hierarchy, enslaved

 to the purposes of that hierarchy, forbidden to learn except what

 the cult would teach. You have only to look at the rules which

 govern the servants of a religion to know whether its god is

 God indeed, or devil!" He passed his hand across his face, then

 laughed unsteadily. "Listen how I preach. Aghrehond should

 not have told you to question me about this. My anxiety is too

 close to my skin. Come, we will ride up to the others and think

 no more of it."

   But when they rode into the gravel courtyard near the sta-

 bles, Marianne thought of it again, for a long black car stood

 there, the black and red diplomatic flag of Lubovosk fluttering

 over its hood.

   "I had not expected her for several hours yet," said Makr

 Avehl. Then, as he sat there, looking at the flag, he was struck

 with a comprehension so violent that he swayed in the saddle.

 Tabiti. Madame Delubovoska. Harvey's aunt, his kinswoman.

 Why had he not made this simple connection before? If Harvey

 had not had the wit to pick out the things he had given to

 Marianne, if someone else had done so, someone sly, vile,

 deeply schooled in all the black arts-why, it would have been

 Tabiti.

   "Lord of Light," he thought, terrified. "Of course it would

 have been Tabiti, and I have brought Marianne here, like bring-

 ing a lamb into a cave of wolverines." They had been so casual

 with one another when he'd met them in New York, he hadn't

 realized that they were not merely related, not merely acquain-

 tances, but actually akin, sympathetic. He turned to Marianne

  

 with some urgency, knuckles white where they gripped the

 reins. "Wait," he warned himself. "Do not jump too quickly.

 You are not sure that this is true." But he was sure, so sure

 that his face was ten years older, drawn with concentration,

 when he turned to take Marianne's hand.

   "Kinswoman, I will ask you in advance to forgive me if I

 pay you little attention for the next several hours. Now that I

 have learned a bit more about your half brother and his rela-

 tionship to Lubovosk, I think it was a foolish mistake to invite

 him into my house, a foolish mistake to invite Tabiti here. The

 dimensions of my foolhardiness were unclear. I could not be

 more sorry. Will you forgive me?"

   She managed to create a smile, eager to give him whatever

 help she could. "I'll pay no attention at all."

   "Stay with Ellat," he counseled. "Stick to her like a leech."

   "Ellat may get rather bored with that."

   "Ellat will prefer it," he grated.

   They went into the house, to all appearances a cheerful,

 chattering group, through the open doors of the library where

 Ellat awaited them, her face slightly drawn with strain. As

 Marianne entered the room, she saw nothing but the two figures

 across it, Harvey and the Madame, faces alike as twins, eager

 with some strange avidity she could not identify, eyes hungry

 and glittering. They were staring only at Marianne, and she

 felt their eyes like a blow.

   Harvey came to take her by the hand, his own palm wet

 and sticky as though he had been working in the sun. "Well,

 little sister. Back from the ride? Come meet a relative of ours."

 She nodded, murmuring "of course" as he drew her from Makr

 Avehl's side across the room into a cold, threatening space

 where it was all she could do to smile between tight lips in

 acknowledgment of the introduction. Madame's eyes were like

 those of a bird of prey; they seemed to Whirl like wheels of

 fire, and her voice had serrated edges to it, a kind of velvet

 file rasping in her head.

   "I'm so pleased to get to meet you at last, my dear. My

 nephew has mentioned you so often, told me so much about

 you. How is the school going? Did I understand you had had

 some academic difficulties?"

   Marianne tried to deny this, tried to say that she had had

  

 no difficulty, except in carrying a heavy load of course work

 in addition to working full time, but the words stuck in her

 throat.

   She heard Harvey's voice as though through a pool of thick

 water, thick, cold water, gelid, about to crystallize into ice

 making a thunder in her ears. "Oh, I don't think Marianne lets

 that worry her. She isn't that serious about her work."

   Again Marianne tried to protest, realizing in panic that she

 could not breathe. She was suffocating. Then Ellat was beside

 her, saying something about Marianne's having promised to

 look at the orchids in the conservatory, and she was drawn

 away from them and was in another room, leaning against a

 wall, gasping for breath.

   "What... how..." she gasped. "What happened?"

   "It is an amusement for her," said Ellat angrily. "It's some-

 thing she does. For fun, I think. She tried it on me, but Makr

 Avehl had warned me. I will show you how to prevent its

 happening again. Also, I've had your things moved out of the

 guest wing and into my room. It's a large room with two beds,

 and we will share it. I think it will be safer if you are not alone.

 We'll go there now." And the two of them sneaked away up-

 stairs like naughty children, though Ellat continued her angry

 muttering the while. Once behind the closed door, Ellat washed

 Marianne's face with a cool washcloth, as though she had,

 indeed, been a child.

   "It's frightening, isn't it? I could see your face turning red,

 as though you couldn't get your breath."

   "What did you mean, it's something she does? I don't under-

 stand what's going on."

   "Have you ever heard of telepathy?"

   "I've heard of it. I don't believe in it."

   "Well, then don't believe in it if you don't want to, Mari-

 anne, but listen to me anyhow. That woman down there, that-

 Lubovoskan," she spat the word as though it had been a curse.

 "That woman made a very strong telepathic suggestion to you

 that you could not breathe, that you were suffocating. As I

 said, she tried it on me earlier, but Makr Avehl had warned

 me. Now, if you aren't comfortable with the idea of telepathy,

 that's fine. Call it subliminal suggestion or something. Or pre-

 tend she has a transmitter in her pocket that blocks your brain

  

 waves. Whatever. She can do it, and you.felt it."

   "I don't believe this," Marianne protested. "Things like this

 aren't possible."

   "Well," said Ellat, "you felt it. Was it false? A result of

 riding too long, perhaps? Coming into a warm room out of the

 air? Dizzyness? Perhaps something to do with the menstrual

 cycle-that's always a good explanation for such things. Hys-

 teria?" She waited angrily for Marianne's denial, which did not

 come. "No. It was none of these things. It was an unworthy

 exercise of certain abilities which should never be used in such

 a way. It is a kind of seduction, one of several kinds they use.

 Well, we knew she could do such things. We did not know she

 would do them; particularly, we did not think of her doing them

 here or to you. So you must either run or confound her. Which

 is it to be?"

   "I will confound her," pledged Marianne, revulsed by the

 memory of Harvey's hungry, prurient eyes. It had been Ellat's

 use of the word "seduction" which had decided her. Of course

 it was a kind of seduction. A kind very like the one Harvey

 had been trying on her for years, a seduction of power, of

 oppression, of dominance. "I will confound her if I can, but

 she makes me feel like Harvey does. I can feel her peeling me,

 taking my skin off to look inside, layer by layer. I feel flayed

 when she looks at me. She scares me."

   "That one scares Makr Avehl himself, girl. But I think we

 can manage to get through the evening." She began to clear

 the top of her dressing table, beckoning Marianne to a place

 before the mirror where she could see her own frightened face

 above Ellat's busy hands.

   "This," said Ellat, making a specific shape with her left

 hand, "we call the 'tower of iron.' Make this shape with your

 hand. No. Look, at it more closely. That's right. Now this we

 call the 'wall which cannot be moved.' I will tell you about

 these...." So the lesson began.

   Hours later Marianne sat before the mirror once more,

 dressed in one of the new outfits, a glittering silver sheath,

 hair piled high in a simple, dramatic style which one of Ellat's

 maids had done for her. She breathed deeply, setting her own

 center of being high and balanced. "You will not get me again,

 Harvey," she said. "Not you or your aunt." The woman in the

  

 mirror could be afraid of nothing. I am a tower of iron, she

 sang quietly to herself in the litany Ellat had taught her, moving

 her hand in the proper sign. / am a fortress of strength, a wall

 which cannot be moved.

   Ellat was running a brush across her shining head, patting

 the full knot which she wore low upon her neck. "Remember

 to think reflection. Visualize lightning striking a mirror and

 being reflected back. Remember."

   Marianne shut her eyes, fastening her sparkling necklace

 with its shining pendants. She glittered all over, a gemmy wand,'

 bending and swaying, the necklace flashing. "I remember, El-

 lat. I'm trying to remember everything you've said."

   "I'll be right beside you. There's the dinner gong. Shall we

 go down?"

   Marianne took a deep breath, nodded, began to breathe

 slowly, calmly, focusing her thought upon strength and will.

 They went into the library as though for a stroll in the gardens,

 setting themselves like adamant against the will of Madame,

 against the hot curiosity in Harvey's avid eyes. Was it only her

 imagination, thought Marianne, or did he seem disappointed?

 What did that questioning look to Madame mean? Perhaps they

 had not expected her to be able to come down to dinner at all.

 She gritted mental teeth and smiled, visualizing lightning with

 every fiber in her brain. I am a tower of iron.

   Madame came toward her at once, Harvey trailing behind,

 making Marianne think irreverently of a mother goose with

 one gosling, Madame's expression being very much a looking-

 down-the-beak one. She laid a hand on Marianne's shoulder

 and Marianne stepped back, out of her reach. Madame's eyes

 glittered at this and she said, "Harvey and I were just discussing

 what you might enjoy seeing when you come to Lubovosk with

 your brother."

   I am afire which cannot be put out, she thought. "Really?"

 she said aloud. "I have not contemplated such a trip, and it's

 unlikely I could travel so far any time soon."

   "Oh, Bitsy, anything is possible," said Harvey, smiling,

 sipping at his cocktail, lips wet and avid in the soft light of

 the room, sucking lips, vampire lips.

   "Not for me, I'm afraid," she said, smiling in return. / am

 a tower of iron. "Besides," she turned a spiteful reposte, "if I

  

 traveled to that part of the world, it would be to my mother's

 people-to Alphenlicht." Had she put that slight emphasis on

 my, my mother's people? Yes. The air boiled around her and

 she felt Madame's fury like a blow.

   "There is really very little there to interest you, my child,"

 the woman said. "Very little of interest to anyone. It is a country

 of peasants and priests."

   "Do I hear my name being taken in vain?" asked Makr

 Avehl, offering Marianne a glass and taking her elbow in his

 hand to turn her away toward other guests. "What is this about

 peasants and priests? Are you talking shop again, Tahiti?" Mari-

 anne felt his fingers tremble on her arm, knew that he was

 almost as sunk in rage as Madame herself, felt herself adrift

 in these vicious currents which spun around her. / am a fortress

 of strength, she told herself, moving away to be introduced to

 other guests, Ellat close beside her.

   At dinner, she was at the far end of a long table from Harvey

 and Madame, and she was able to ignore them for moments

 at a time. After dinner, they came close to her again, the thrust

 of their intention as clear as though they had struck at her with

 a blade. Makr Avehl spoke to her only casually, as to any other

 guest. Ellat stayed close.

   / am a fortress of diamond, Marianne told herself, concen-

 trating upon reflecting their intentions back upon themselves.

 She moved her hand into the configurations Ellat had shown

 her, then thought about them, internalized them. A mountain

 of stone. Making a hard fist with her right hand. / cannot be

 moved or changed. I am the fire which cannot be put out.

 Flicker of first and second finger of the right hand, a trill of

 movement, secretive.

   "Hey, Bitsy," Harvey called. "How are you getting back to

 town tomorrow?"

   / am diamond, Marianne told herself. "I hadn't thought

 about it, Harvey." Quietly asserting the while, / am iron. Left

 forefinger raised, pressed against cheek.

   "Then you must let me drive you back." Madame, gaily

 importunate. "Your brother has already consented to accom-

 pany me, and your home is on our way."

   "Marianne." Makr Avehl, laughing. "I am crushed! Had

  

 you forgotten so soon that you promised I could drive you

 back? I have those papers to pick up which your librarian so

 kindly offered to lend to me."

   / am iron. I an adamant. Smiling, turning to him with a

 little moue of forgetfulness. "I did promise. Of course. I'm

 sorry, Madame. Another time, perhaps." / am the fire which

 cannot be put out.

   "Oh, I am disappointed. Yes, we will certainly make another

 occasion. I have not had opportunity to get to know you nearly

 as well as I should like." Gentle, caressing, infinitely threat-

 ening.

   We are like Siamese fighting fish, thought Marianne. We

 circle, our fins engorged with blood, ready to die if need be,

 caught up in our dance. She flinched nervously as Ellat touched

 her on the arm.

   "Would you like to go up? You said you wanted to ride

 early in the morning."

   Taking this lead, Marianne nodded gratefully. "Thank you,

 Ellat. Yes. I am a little tired. The ride this afternoon was a

 longer one than I've had in years. Good night, Madame, Harvey.

 Madame Andami, I enjoyed your company today. Mr. Wil-

 liams, Betty. I enjoyed our discussion at dinner. Mrs. Williams.

 Mr. Winston-Forbes, Harriet, Stephany. Good night, Your Ex-

 cellency. It has been a very pleasant day." To walk away, back

 straight, face calm, up the stairs. I am a tower of adamant, I

 cannot be moved. Down the hall with Ellat, into the room, to

 collapse across the bed, bent tight around a stomach which

 heaved and squirmed within her.

   "You did very well," said Ellat, giving her a glass of some-

 thing sweet and powerful which melted warmth through her

 and stopped the heaving.

   "Nothing happened," Marianne whispered. "If you'd taken

 a movie of it, you wouldn't have seen anything. Nothing hap-

 pened at all. But I kept feeling them."

   "Nothing seemed to happen; very much was happening.

 Your half brother has made an alliance. He has done it very

 suddenly it seems. Did he know her before?"

   "I never heard him mention her name until a day or so ago.

 I didn't know he had relatives in Lubovosk."

  

   "He writes mockingly of the Cave of Light. That is a typical

 Lubovoskan attitude."

   "I only know what I told you earlier. I think he went there

 twice. Once shortly before Mama died. Once, later, before

 Papa Zahmani died. When each of them died, Harvey had...

 had..."

   "Had only recently returned?"

   "Had only recently returned," she agreed in a dead voice,

 remembering Dr. Brown's words, heard through a closed door

 when she had been only twelve: "I would have said she died

 of suffocation, Haurvatat." Suffocation. Not being able to

 breathe. A thing Madame did to people for fun. Had Madame

 been able to teach that skill to Harvey? Harvey, who had been

 rejected by Cloud-haired mama and told to go find a nice girl

 his own age? Or had Madame herself come to confront Cloud-

 haired mama when no one else was there to see, to remember?

   "There may be no connection at all," said Ellat firmly,

 undoing the tiny buttons at the back of Marianne's gown. "Go

 in there and have a nice, hot shower and put on your robe.

 Makr Avehl will come up here before he goes to bed. After a

 good night's sleep, nothing will look so ominous."

   "I'm afraid I won't sleep," she confessed, the vision of Mama

 and Madame in intimate confrontation still oppressing her.

   "Another glass of what I gave you before, and you will

 sleep."

   Makr Avehl's light tap at the door came late, when the party

 downstairs had broken up and the sound of voices calling good-

 night to one another had fallen into silence, when lights had

 begun to go out in upstairs windows that Marianne could see

 in the opposite wing. He entered quietly, embraced Ellat, then

 sat on the edge of Marianne's bed. "Isn't this ridiculous?" he

 asked. "I invite a lovely young woman for a weekend's visit,

 all quite properly chaperoned by my sister. I invite her broth-

 er, too, because I am curious, and an old antagonist of mine,

 because I am proud, and suddenly all turns to slime and wicked-

 ness. You find it difficult to believe, don't you? Well, so do

 I, and I have less excuse than you do. Marianne, my dear, will

 you rise at dawn, please, and go down to the stables where

 Aghrehond will meet you and take you away from here. Leave

 your bags. I will bring them when I meet you later in the day

  

 to drive you home, as promised. There are too many currents

 here, too many eddies of greed and passion. Tell me, Marianne,

 would... would your half brother benefit in any material way

 if harm came to you?"

   Her throat went dry, harsh as sandpaper. She had had those

 thoughts, had banished them, had put them down, "buried,

 begone" in her own litany, but they lunged upward now like

 corpses long drowned and broken free of some weight to rise

 hideously through slimed water to the surface. She cried out

 at the horror of it, all at once weeping in a steady flow. Ellat

 took her into her arms and held her, saying "Shh, shh. He

 shouldn't have asked it so abruptly like that. But you don't

 protest, Marianne. You don't protest?"

   "No," she cried. "I can't protest, Ellat. I've thought it too

 many times. I thought I was wicked to think such a thing, only

 a wicked, angry child. But, oh, if I died, he would get all that

 Mama left me-it's all tied up in Papa Zahmani's estate, and

 my share of Papa's estate, too. It's a lot. More than I ever

 wanted or expected. More than anyone could need."

   "Ah," said Makr Avehl. "So he has a reason. Now, what is

 her reason?"

   Ellat shushed him and gave Marianne something which sent

 her into sleep, all at once, like falling into velvet darkness.

 She was still fuzzy at the edges of her mind when they put her

 into Aghrehond's care at dawn in the stableyard, among the

 horses clattering out of the place for exercise and the grooms

 chattering as they headed for the wooded roads.

   "Come, pretty lady," said Aghrehond. "We must be away

 from here."

   "Won't they think I'm terribly rude," she asked, "leaving

 the party unannounced this way?"

   He made a conspiratorial face with much scrunching of

 eyebrows and mouth. "Ellat will say you have gone for an early

 ride. This is strictly true. She will not say 'horseback,' though

 they may think so. Others may also desire to ride. So, that is

 fine, and Makr Avehl will go with them. It is a large place, is

 is not? There are many miles of pleasant roads around it. Who

 is to wonder if you are not seen by anyone until noon? By

 then, you will be elsewhere. Tsk. Stop frowning. You make

 your face all frilled, like a cabbage leaf."

  

   She stopped frilling her face and let the day happen. They

 stopped for breakfast in a small, seaside town. They shopped

 for antiques along the winding streets. They drove through a

 national monument. They returned to the small town a little

 after noon to find Makr Avehl waiting for them with Marianne's

 bags in his car.

   "There is a buffet luncheon going on back at the house,"

 he said to Aghrehond. "Some are eating now, others will have

 luncheon when they return from riding. Some friends of Ellat's

 will come in to swell the numbers. We will not be missed for

 some time, which is fortunate." His face was set, grim, and

 he made a covert sign to Aghrehond which Marianne saw from

 the corner of one eye. "When someone asks-and not until

 then-you may say to Ellat in the hearing of the rest that I

 have driven Marianne back early in order to go on to Wash-

 ington for an early meeting at the State Department."

   "What happened?" she demanded. "Something happened.

 What was it?"

   He barked a short expletive, chopped off, as a curse half

 spoken. "A pack of feral dogs," he said, "came out of nowhere,

 according to the grooms. Madame Andami was bitten on the

 leg. Superb rider, of course, and she stayed up. We've sent

 her to a physician up in Charlottesville. One of the horses is

 cut up a bit. The vet is there now. Someone riding alone-

 someone not as fine a rider as Madame Andami, someone out

 of practice, for example-might have been seriously injured."

 They stood for a moment considering this. "The head groom

 works for the people who own the place, of course, as do all

 the servants except for Ellat's maids and my secretary. He says

 he has never known it to happen before. It's horse country. A

 pack of feral dogs that would attack horses? It wouldn't be

 tolerated for a day! They would have been hunted down."

   Marianne did not ask the questions which tumbled into her

 mind. Did someone think the dogs were set upon the riders?

 Was it an accident? Makr Avehl's face had the look of one who

 did not wish to talk, to guess, to theorize, the look of a man

 rigidly but barely under control. He waved Aghrehond back to

 the big car as he ushered her into the smaller one. Over her

 shoulder, she saw the large car turn back toward Wanderly and

 the house. She remained quiet, let time and miles pass, watched

  

 Ms face until it began to relax slightly, then asked, "You think

 they were after me?"

  "I'm sorry, Marianne. I do think so. Yes."

  "You think that's possible? To stir up dogs that way? Make

 them attack horses?"

  He made an odd, aborted stroking motion toward his chin.

 "I could do it. It wouldn't even be difficult. I know that she

 can do it, because I can, and whatever I may think about Tahiti,

 she's strong. Lord, she's strong. And I am weakened by being

 angry at myself. No-don't shush me. I am angry at myself.

 Before I invited you here, I never thought to ask about your

 true relationship with your brother. I knew you didn't like him,

 I knew things were not good between you, but I never tried to

 get at the bottom of it. I should have considered it more fully.

 Instead I lulled you. I lulled myself.

  "Marianne, he means you ill. Not merely in the slightly

 jealous way one sibling may cordially detest another-which,

 Lord help me, was what I had considered. No, he means you

 real destruction as surely as this road leads to your home. He

 means you ill and he has made some kind of alliance with

 Madame to that end-if, indeed, she is not a primary mover

 in this matter. And I, who foolishly exposed you to this, must

 find a way to protect you."

   Marianne laughed bitterly, and when he turned an astonished

 face on her, she laughed again. "Makr Avehl, you don't know

 how relieved I was last night to hear you say that. For years,

 I've thought that Harvey hated me, or resented me. For years

 I've fought against his patronizing me, destroying me. When-

 ever I got my head up, he'd do his best to knock it down. The

 only things I could be sure of succeeding at were things he

 didn't find out about. Always with that hating face, that superior

 smile. But nothing I could prove. Nothing anyone else could

 see.. So I felt guilty, wicked. I felt I didn't have the right to

 hate him. After all, Papa left him in charge, left him to take

 care of me. Now you say he's trying to harm me-really. For

 money. For Papa Zahmani's money. I suppose it's true. Harvey

 likes money. He never has enough, though what he inherited

 should have been enough for anyone. But I get more, of course,

 when I'm thirty, because a lot of it was my mother's. My

 mother's, not Harvey's mother's. But Papa was old country,

  

 through and through. Couldn't see leaving it to me until I was

 a matron. Girls had no real status with Papa. He loved me,

 but that was different."

   "That may be true, but I think it more likely he saw you as

 a little girl and he saw Harvey as a grown man. Perhaps he

 only wanted to protect you. How old was Harvey?"

   "Oh, twenty-five or -six. That may have been it. I was only

 thirteen. I wish I could feel that was it."

   "Your papa had no reason to mistrust his son?"

   "No. Harvey was never... he was never strange until Mama

 died. When I was a little girl, I thought he was Prince Charm-

 ing. Really. He was so handsome, so gallant. He brought little

 presents. He... he courted us, Mama and me. Then, when

 Mama died, he changed, all at once. He became something

 ... something horrible."

   "I think it possible that he did not understand the reality of

 the property division between your parents. I don't think he

 realized quite what part of the family fortunes were yours,

 Marianne. Perhaps he began to be a bit strange when he visited

 Lubovosk. I'm sure that he was given weapons there he should

 not have had, and now I must defend you against them. You

 must be very brave, and very strong. There are certain things

 black shamans can do-and certain things people trained by

 them can do. You've seen a sample already....

   "There are worse things: transport into the false worlds, into

 the dream borders, binding forever in places which exist within

 the mind and have virtually no exits to the outside world....

   "But to do any of these things, the shaman believes that his

 ritual demands consent. Listen to me, Marianne."

   "I'm listening. You said the ritual demands consent."

   "Remember it. The shamans believe the ritual is necessary

 to the effect, and they believe that consent is necessary to the

 ritual. The shaman says to his victim, 'Will you have some

 tea?' And the victim says, 'Yes, thank you.' That is consent.

 In my own library, your brother said to you, 'Come, let me

 introduce you to...' and you nodded yes. That was consent.

 So she then struck at you."

   "Did the people who went riding consent? If so, to what?"

   "More likely, Madame went down to the stables before going

 to bed last night, taking a few lumps of sugar with her. 'Here,

  

 old boy, have a lump of sugar,' and the horse nods his head,

 taking the sugar. He has consented then, and they can use him.

 So also with dogs, with birds, with anything they can get to

 take food from their hands. The true victim was to be the horse,

 whatever horse you might be riding or anyone else might be

 riding. They are not over scrupulous."

  "What are you trying to tell me?"

  "I am saying, for a time, do not consent to anything your

 brother proposes. If he says on the phone 'isn't it a nice day,'

 say 'no, it is not.' If he says 'wouldn't you like to go to Mexico

 for your vacation,' say 'no, I'd rather go somewhere else.' Be

 disagreeable. Better yet, do not talk to him at all."

  "Forever? That may be difficult."

  "Only for a few days, until I can get a few of the Kavi

 together to make a protection for you. Until we can teach you

 to protect yourself. I don't even want to take you home, to

 leave you there alone, except that anything else would make

 them more determined, more dangerous. As it is, they may not

 know we suspect them."

  "The thing Ellat taught me won't work?"

  "You're not schooled enough in its use. You haven't the

 discipline. I hate to leave you, even for tonight."

  "They can't be in that much of a hurry," she said nervously,

 disturbed by his intensity. "I don't inherit for another four years,

 for heaven's sake. Harvey isn't going to do anything precipi-

 tous."

  "I suppose you're right. Once one begins to feel this menace,

 this gathering force, it is like hearing a thunderstorm in one's

 head. Space and time are lost in it. One is at the center of

 fury." He reached to take her hand in his, utterly unprepared

 for the reaction his words would bring. "Marianne, I could stay

 with you tonight."

  Her hand whipped away from him, without volition. Her

 mouth bent into an oval of rejection, horror. "I'm not like that,"

 she said, the words coming from deep within, words she did

 not usually say aloud but were now aloud, between them, harsh

 and ugly. "Not like that." She shuddered once, again, muttered

 words under her breath, like a litany, got control of herself,

 tried to make light of it, did not succeed. His face was white,

 blank.

  

   "I've offended you," he said at last. "I meant nothing dis-

 honorable. Please. It was only to offer protection. You're prob-

 ably right. There is not that much hurry. They aren't mind

 readers, after all. They cannot know how thoroughly I am

 alerted to the danger they pose. We will comfort ourselves with

 that thought. If your brother calls, you will be light, and cheer-

 ful, and contrary. Please remember to be contrary, Marianne."

   She agreed to do so, not hearing him, too caught up in the

 internal maelstrom he had unleashed, wanting only to be out

 of the car and behind a door, her own door, shut against the

 world. "Not like that," the hissing demon voices inside kept

 saying. "Harvey was wrong. I'm not like that."

   He left her at the door, seeing on her face that he should

 not offer to come in. She went in to disconnect phone, to sit

 for an hour in her window while the sun went down and the

 stars began to peek over the roofs and chimneys. The buds of

 the oak outside her window had begun to unfurl into tiny, curled

 hands of innocent pink, and her mind squirmed in guilt and

 confusion at the fact that now, even now, she lusted after him,

 wanted him, and all the years of not wanting did not seem to

 have immunized her at all.

   At last she set to work building mental towers of adamant

 and walls of iron. She put herself to sleep with the litany Ellat

 had taught her. She awakened to her clock radio, news of

 combat and death, so ordinary and distant as to be undisturbing.

 She was almost ready for class when the doorbell rang, and

 she saw the delivery man's hat through the peephole, knew

 that it must be some little gift from Makr Avehl, felt again that

 combined guilt, lust and self-loathing. She opened the door to

 receive the package, accept the the proffered pencil.

   "You have to sign for it. Where the X is on the line."

   "Yes," said Marianne, "I will." Only to see the glitter of

 eyes as the uniformed person's head came up, dark, hawk-

 faced, mouth curved in a cry of victory. She had only time to

 think that she had given consent and to say, "Madame Delu-

 bovoska," before all went dark around her.

  

 IT WAS DARK by the time Makr Avehl arrived in Washington

 after miles of driving through country he did not see, traffic

 he did not consider, in a state of mind best described, he told

 himself, as unnerved and astonished. While his mouth had been

 busy saying words which meant, in whatever language he was

 thinking, "Gods in heaven, what ails the wench!" his center of

 being was saying in another tone, perhaps another language

 entirely, "Oh, my dear, my very dear." This colloquy was over

 in the moment which it occupied, leaving his political self

 shaken before the sweet longing of that inner voice: "Oh, my

 very dear." And that was when he knew, absolutely and without

 any remaining doubt. Not earlier, when he had seen her at

 dinner, a sparkling baton of willow flesh, bending but not

 breaking before her brother's assault; not on horseback, face

 eager as a child's, with tendrils of hair wet on her forehead

 from the sun; not as he had seen her in the car, first laughing

 then crying to know that all her world was arrayed against her

 but that she was not insane.

  So. So what was he to do now? She had rejected him and

 he had left her, left her there alone, and he could not go back

  

 to force himself upon her, for in such forcing might end all

 that he now in one instant hoped and longed for, without warn-

 ing or premonition. Well, no matter the reason, if any. If she

 had rejected him, she had not rejected Ellat, and what Ellat

 could not find out was not worth the finding. So he drove like

 a maniac to reach his hotel and a phone so that Ellat might be

 enlisted in his sudden cause. He was convinced of danger,

 smelled it, felt it breathing hotly on his neck, a scent of blood

 and damnation. She must accept help from Ellat.

   Oncoming headlights speared toward his eyes, and he came

 to himself as a horn shrieked beside him, dopplering by and

 away into darkness with a howl of fury. This sobered him. He

 would call Ellat as soon as he arrived in Washington. Until

 then, he would try to behave more sensibly and think of other

 things.

   In which he was only partially successful. Ellat was eager

 enough to help Marianne. "Of course I'll stay with her. We

 got along quite nicely. If you really feel...." But her desire

 to help did not allay Makr Avehl's concern.

   "I really feel," he said grimly, "that there's something more

 than merely wicked going on here."

   "I can't figure what they're playing at," fussed Ellat. "Ma-

 dame using her cocktail party magic tricks here, in this house,

 against one of your people."

   "I think Madame sees Marianne as one of her people, or

 one of Harvey's people, which amounts to the same thing. Can

 you be here by lunch time tomorrow?"

   Lunch time, she said, yes. Yes, the guests had all departed.

 Yes, the horse which had been bitten seemed to be healing and

 a dog they had captured was being tested for rabies. Yes, he

 could turn in the little car to the rental agency, they would use

 the big one. Yes, the servants were packing so that they might

 leave. "I'm tired of all this, Makr Avehl. I want to go home."

   "Just as soon as we do something about Marianne, Ellat. I

 promise."

   Something in his voice said more than he had intended, for

 there was a waiting silence at the other end of the line, a silence

 which invited him to say more than he was ready to say. When

 he did not fill it, she said, "Take her with us. That's the sensible

 thing to do."

  

   "It's called kidnaping, Ellat. The Americans don't find it

 socially acceptable. They have laws against it."

   Ellat only snorted. "Tomorrow. At lunch time."

   On which note he found himself sitting on the side of his

 bed, holding the phone in one hand as it buzzed a long, agitated

 complaint. Should he call Marianne? What could he say? No.

 Better leave it. Drop in with Ellat tomorrow, about five in the

 afternoon, when Marianne got home from work. Gritting his

 teeth, he turned from the phone to his briefcase to spend two

 dull hours going over the material he would use in his meeting

 the following morning.

   And when that meeting was over, he felt it had all been an

 exercise in futility, a kind of diplomatic danse macabre in which

 he and Madame had shaken skeletons at one another like chil-

 dren at a Halloween party. And yet the woman had seemed

 strangely satisfied, as though she had won whatever game she

 was playing.

   "The undersecretary of state assures me that we may depend

 upon the status quo," he said to Ellat over the lunch table.

   "Which means precisely what?" asked Ellat, not interrupting

 her concentration on a plethora of oysters.

   "Which means exactly nothing," he admitted. "The U.S.

 has spoken for us in the U.N. and that's it. They don't take

 the matter seriously, and I'm beginning to think they're right.

 This has all been a charade. Madame is up to something else,

 and this has all been misdirection, probably for my benefit."

   "Marianne said that."

   "She said what?"

   "Marianne said that if the Lubovoskans really intended to

 take us over, they'd invade."

   "Well, of course they have tried that," he said.

   "She would have no way of knowing that, Makr Avehl. I

 repeat what I said earlier. If you want to keep the child safe

 and away from that horrible brother of hers, take her with us."

   He did not reply. The food did not tempt him, and he was

 waiting impatiently for Ellat's affair with the oysters to run its

 course. He dared not agree with her, for she would take it as

 a promise, but emotionally he had begun to believe only the

 course she had suggested would satisfy him-to take Marianne

 with him when he left.

  

   "Eat your oysters, Ellat," he said. "It may be your last

 opportunity to do so. Aghrehond will be here with the car in

 twenty minutes."

   They approached Marianne's tall house just at sunset. The

 door into the front hall stood open and on the tiny turfed area

 between the steps and the iron fence, Mrs. Winesap leaned on

 a lawn edger, intent upon the clean line separating daffodils

 from grass. She looked up in frank curiosity, staring at Makr

 Avehl and Ellat from her broad, open face, mouth a little open,

 rather gnomelike with her cutoff jeans and baggy shirt. "I don't

 think Marianne's here," she told them. "The door's open, though,

 so she must have run out just for a minute."

   Makr Avehl acknowledged this information with a pleasant

 nod, stood back to let Ellat precede him into the hallway and

 halfway up the stairs. Then he saw Marianne's jacket, obviously

 trodden upon where it lay half on the upper step, then the

 clipboard of papers with her signature scrawled and running

 off one edge. The door to her apartment was open. On the

 window seat the purple crocuses wilted in the close heat, and

 a fly buzzed in frustration against the closed window.

   He stepped back into the hall to pick up the clipboard,

 knowing as he did so what had happened. It could all be read

 in the signs; the track of the beast could be seen. The world

 began to turn red inside his eyes, and he realized he was holding

 his breath. Released air burst from his lungs, and he sat down

 abruptly. "She's gone. Oh, damn me for a fool, Ellat. Damn

 me for an arrogant, irresponsible fool. We're too late. She's

 gone."

   Ellat was already going down the stairs, out into the tiny

 front yard. "You must be Mrs. Winesap? I thought so. Marianne

 has told me all about you. She's so grateful for your help with

 the lawn. I wonder, did you happen to notice anyone coming

 or going this morning? I had sent a package, and I won-

 dered ..."

   Sympathetic, warm expression saying what a nice woman

 she was to have sent a package. "I saw him leaving. Went out

 of here like a cat with his tail on fire. Must have left his delivery

 truck around the comer, because he went off down the block

 in the time it took me to say 'Good morning.' I hate it when

 people are so bad-tempered they don't even respond to a simple

  

 time of day. I said, 'Good morning,' loud and cheerful, and I

 didn't even get a grunt from him."

   "That would have been about what time?"

   "Oh, let me see. What did I come outside for? I'd had

 breakfast, and Larkin was doing the dishes, and I'd written a

 letter to my sister-that was it-and I'd come out to put it in

 the mailbox for the postman. So it wasn't time for 'Donahue'

 yet, or I'd have been watching him. About 8:30, I'd say, give

 a little take a little." She laughed heartily. "I always say don't

 be too sure, and nobody can call you a liar."

   He was holding onto the banister when Ellat came back up

 the stairs. "I heard," he said. "Then Marianne wasn't taken."

 He turned back into the room. On the window seat the Delvaux

 print of the young women setting lights in the street was broken

 in two, splintered ends of frame protruding like broken bones.

 He went through to the bedroom. Nothing. Orderly. She had

 made the bed. The bathroom was a little messy, towel dropped

 rather than folded. "She was here when the doorbell rang," he

 said to Ellat, turning to make a helpless gesture to Aghrehond

 who had just come up the stairs. "Doorbell rang, she went to

 the door. The person there said something about signing for a

 package, and Marianne said 'of course' or 'sure' or something

 of the kind-without thinking. She didn't even have time to

 be afraid." Oh, God, he thought, why did she pull away from

 me with that revulsion? I should have been here. I should have

 been the one to answer that door, confront that monster.

   "If it is that Lubovosk woman, she flips her finger at you,"

 said Aghrehond. "She sneers like a boy in the street, nyaa,

 nyaa, nyaa. She makes an insult, a provocation. Why?"

   "Perhaps," said Ellat, "because she has had the wits to see

 that Makr Avehl cares for the girl. Bait. Bait in a trap."

   With horror, Makr Avehl thought of the white bird and the

 black, demon fish; thought of the naked girl carrying her little

 light into the darkness while trying to pretend that she was

 dreaming. He came to himself staring at his own face in the

 mirror, haggard and terrified.

   "Why is the picture broken?"

   "I gave it to her," he replied woodenly. 'To replace a very

 unpleasant one her brother had given her. If Harvey saw it-

 if Madame saw it, they would know in an instant that someone

  

 was intervening in Marianne's affairs."

   "But she wasn't taken," said Ellat. "Whoever it was didn't

 take her."

   "Sent," Makr Avehl growled. "Not taken, sent." So, wher-

 ever she was now, among the false worlds, somewhere in the

 endless borderlands where no maps existed and the shortest

 distance between any two points was never a straight line, she

 was at least together, body and soul. He had seen bodies sun-

 dered from their souls. He had experienced souls sundered in

 that way, too. Better not, far better not. If he had had to choose

 between two horrors, it would have been this, at least. That

 she was in one place. One. Somewhere.

   "I must go into Madame's limbo after her, into whatever

 borderland place she has been sent."

   "Makr Avehl! Think of the danger!" Ellat laid a hand upon

 his arm. "Think!"

   "I am thinking," he muttered. "You, too. Think of her.

 Somewhere alone. Lost. Frightened. Perhaps without memory.

 Certainly without friends. In a dream world, a lost world, a

 world in which dark is light and evil is good, perhaps. You

 think, Ellat. What else can we do?"

   "From here?"

   "Yes. From here. Water those flowers, will you? She wouldn't

 have left them like that. Open the window. She would have

 done that." Oh, God Zurvan, he prayed, let me undo the harm

 I have done. I was the one not to tell her what pit of evil I

 sensed in that box of hers. I was the one who begged her to

 come to Wanderly, not valuing her own instincts which bade

 her stay far from her so-called kin. I was the one who considered

 the threat not urgent, not imminent. God.

   Where would one like Madame send one like Marianne?

 What kind of world would she construct, of her own soul, of

 her own being? Where would one like Marianne be sent? Into

 what place? Into which of the myriad borderlands? How con-

 strained, how held? He lay down upon Marianne's bed, quietly,

 quietly, letting what he knew of Tahiti possess him until it

 became more real than himself. Where? Where? Where?

   Ellat came to the door of the room, apparently unsurprised

 to see him lying there. "Can you tell me what you are going

 to do?"

  

   He reached out a hand to her, clasping her own, begging

 her trust and indulgence. She released him, sighing.

   How could he describe to her the almost instinctive tasting

 of ambience, the intuitive sorting through of words and ideas

 and pictures? Marianne had been sent, and that sending had

 had to be, by its very nature, within the structure of Marianne's

 relationship to Madame, within the ambience of their milieu.

 He had only to feel his way into that vicinage, into what was

 already there; he had only to seek that faintly diplomatic tinge,

 the flavor of embassies and foreign places, the sourness of

 artifice, the stink of deception, the thin, beery scent of solitude

 and cold rooms, the presence of children-no! The presence

 of the childlike. The shadow of malevolence hovering. Within

 that, something being built, constructed, changed, for Mari-

 anne's own persona would demand that. Courage. There would

 be courage. Stubbornness. A kind of relentless perseverance

 in survival.

   Withal, there would power, Madame's power, Madame's

 control, hidden, perhaps, or disguised, but there nonetheless.

 Madame's colors, ebony and blood. Marianne's colors, mauve

 and plum and misty blue found rarely if at all. Would there be

 anything there of Harvey? Unlikely. Though he might think of

 himself as an important part of this challenge, in reality he was

 no more to Madame than was Marianne herself, a part of the

 bait.He lay there, breathing his way into the precincts of illusion,

 finding the border of dream as he would have found the spoor

 of a deer in the forest of Alphenlicht, slowly, with infinite

 caution, summoning it, moving breath by breath so as not to

 shatter the silence or betray his presence, disguising his own

 form, changing to blend into the place he would find himself,

 that otherwhere, that hinterland where he would find her, find

 her, find her....

   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 Lubo-

 voskan. 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 remem-

 bered 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 mom-

 ing 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 ghost-

 ness.

   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 up-

 welling 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 rebel-

 liously. "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 ropi-

 ness, 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, per-

 sistently. "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 Ma-

 cravail'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 morn-

 ing'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 Lu-

 bovosk who woke her, tapping on the door, calling, "Marianne,

 get up, get dressed. They're doing something new at the em-

 bassy 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 indepen-

 dence 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 ex-

 pected 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 une-

 motional. 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. Reg-

 ulations. 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 Mari-

 anne. "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 fin-

 ish, 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. Macra-

 vail 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 out, 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."

   "I want to cross the border."

   "Where do you want to cross? Into where? There's a crossing

 in a pasture just outside the walls. There's a crossing under the

 wharf we sat on yesterday. There's a crossing where the dwarves

 come in, and one where the heralds go out. Where do you want

 to cross?"

   "Does it matter?"

  

   "You have to choose and consent, Marianne. You can move,

 change, get from this place to another place, so long as you

 choose and consent. Each place has rules of its own. That's

 the rule here. I can only help you if you choose and consent."

   She chewed her lip, felt the hard lump rising in her throat

 once more. "Won't you decide for me, Macravail?"

   He shook his head slowly, a pendulum slowly ticking, a

 mechanical motion as though he had been wound up. She could

 almost hear the slow toc-toc-toc as his head went from side to

 side. "No. I can't do that. And if you talk to anyone about it,

 I can't help you at all. You tell me where you want to cross,

 and I'll take you there, but you must tell me."

   She fumbled with the soggy tissue again, and when she

 looked up it was to see Macravail and the dog disappearing

 around the corner far down the avenue, near the new pool.

 Loud into the dusk came the sound of hammers, dhang, dhang,

 dhang, echoing from the high walls along the street. The sound

 grew louder as she moved toward home, and when she went

 beneath the arch of the gate a chip of stone fell into her collar,

 scratching her neck. The dwarves were at work in the flaring

 light of a hundred torches as the fireworks burst above them

 in showers of multicolored sparks. She could still hear the

 sounds of the hammers when she lay in her bed, trying to

 breathe quietly, trying not to think, trying to sleep.

   Then, in the morning, she tried not to sleep, tried to cast

 off an overwhelming lassitude which paralyzed her will. Below

 her window the children played in the dusty street in a fever

 of intensity. Their game seemed to revolve around a small group

 of slightly older children, children perhaps eleven or twelve-

 perhaps even a little older than that, for the loose shirt which

 one of them wore clung occasionally to the swell of budding

 breasts. That one, a cloud of dark hair and wild, black eyes,

 was at the center of every evolution of the game, a desperate

 concentration upon her face. After a time of watching them,

 Marianne put on her old coat and went down the stairs, through

 the cold hall and onto the shallow steps which fronted the

 pensione. There she sat, nibbling a cuticle, watching. Each

 turn in the game brought the central group somewhat nearer.

 Finally, when the sun was almost overhead, the cloud-haired

 girl was so close that Marianne could have touched her. Instead,

  

 moved by some urge she could not have identified, she said,

 "If someone told you they could get you out without a visa,

 what would you think of that?"

   The girl turned on her with a fiery look. "So what? Any of

 us can do that."

   "You know where the crossing places are?"

   "Hah." It was a whispered sneer. "Since I was^here. Since

 I could walk. I know them all, even the ones that haven't been

 used in a hundred years. All the kids do."

   "Then why don't you-emigrate?"

   The girl stared at her insolently. For a time Marianne thought

 she would not answer, but at last her expression softened and

 she put out a hand to touch Marianne's face. "You're all misty

 in the head, aren't you? Younger than I am, for all you seem

 older. They change, you know. A place might be a good gate

 for a while, then it would become a bad gate. You get through

 a bad gate, you might not be able to play your way out, you

 know? You have to work it out, play it out. That's what we're

 doing. Playing the gates. Patterning them. When the right pat-

 tern comes, then I'm next. I can tell you because I'm next,

 and I won't be here much longer." Seeing the incomprehension

 in Marianne's face, she continued. "There aren't any good gates

 for grown-ups. Only for kids. That's why I have to get out

 right away, before... you know. Don't tell!" For a moment

 the voice was that of someone Marianne knew, then the voice

 of an anguished child, then the dark-haired girl was swung

 back into the frenzy of the game. Marianne returned to her

 room, thinking she should wash her face before lunch. Bent

 over the basin she heard a shout go up from the children, but

 when she hastened to the window there was nothing to see.

   The cloud-haired girl was gone, but she could have gone

 home for lunch. Marianne held that thought resolutely through

 the noon meal, through her afternoon nap, through the pre-

 dinner cocktail hour which the woman from Lubovosk insisted

 all the residents attend, and which she herself attended, today

 full of some obscure fury which Marianne made no effort to

 identify. After dinner the children were still hard at play, but

 the cloud-haired girl was not among them. Marianne went to

 her room to put a pack of tissues in her pocket with her comb

 and, after some thought, the little book of stories Macravail

  

 had given her. She had not read many of the stories nor under-

 stood those she had read. "Something," she whispered to her-

 self. "Everyone should have something."

  She went into the evening and to the river. Macravail was

 there. Beside him the grassy dog was digging wildly into a

 crevasse between two stones, whurffling as he did so. Marianne

 sat down beside Macravail and watched the dog until it gave

 up the search and lay down with a bursting sigh beside them.

 "Tell me where all the crossings are," she said. "Tell me where

 they all are, Macravail." Then, as he did so, she wrote each

 one down on a page of the book, each on a different page.

 When she had finished, the stars had come out. Taking a deep

 breath, she opened the book at random. The nearest lights were

 in the carnival ground, dim and distant. She made it out with

 difficulty. "The alley behind the bird market. Let's go there

 now, Macravail."

  They went the long way 'round, skirting the fruit market and

 the street of the metal workers. They passed the back wall of

 the embassy, hearing over the wall the clatter of dishes and the

 unmistakable sound of laughter-the woman from Lubovosk's

 laughter. The alley behind the bird market was a narrow one,

 lit by a single gaslight. When they stood at the end of it,

 Marianne could see the door clearly, though she thought it had

 not been there when they entered the alley.

   "Through there," said Macravail. She turned to see his face

 drawn up in an expression part pain, part hope, part despair.

 "Through there."

  "I have to go," she pleaded. "You do understand, Macra-

 vail? I can't stay. I can't go on forever like the little old woman,

 like the sons of the duchess. I have to have a difference, Ma-

 cravail. Come with me."

  "No," he said unaccountably. "You're safer alone. They may

 not even know you're gone for a while. But give me some-

 thing-something to remember by...."

  The only thing she had was the book. The words came out

 piteously, unforgiveably, before she thought. "Everyone ought

 to have something...."

  "Ahhh.... She had not heard Macravail wail in that way

 before, so lost, so lonely. "Give me, and I'll give you." She

 felt the dog's leash thrust into her hands, felt the grassy beast

  

 pressing tight against her legs as the book was withdrawn from

 her hand. Then there was only the crossing to elsewhere, and

 the difference came without warning.

   Makr Avehl lay on Marianne's bed, unmoving, eyes closed.

 On the table beside him a brazier burned. From time to time,

 Ellat dropped a pinch of fragrant resin into it to make a pungent

 smoke. Between such times she moved about, making no un-

 necessary noise but not trying to be silent. Aghrehond had been

 stretched out on the living room floor until a few moments

 before. One moment he had been there, as quiet as Makr Avehl,

 the next moment he was gone. Ellat had found her eyes brim-

 ming with tears. Aghrehond was like a brother, like a bumptious,

 loving son. As Marianne had been sent, so had Aghrehond

 been sent. Except, of course, that he had volunteered to go.

   She moved back and forth between the two rooms, being

 sure, tidying up. Makr Avehl would not be disturbed by her

 activities; she had begun to wonder if he could be aroused by

 anything at all. Outside the drawn curtains the evening bloomed

 violet with dusk, mild and springlike.

   "Ellat?" She heard the indrawn breath.

   "Here, Makr Avehl. Hold still. I've kept tea hot for you."

 She slipped her arm beneath his head and brought the steaming

 cup to his lips as he sipped and sipped again, breathing deeply

 as from some great exertion.

   "I found her."

   "I knew you would, if anyone could. Was it as you thought,

 in some borderland world of Madame's?"

   "Yes. A black world, of Black Madame. Oh, Ellat, but I

 will have vengeance on that one. Marianne is nothing to her,

 nothing at all, but she took her up like a boy picking an apple,

 only to throw it away after one bite. Bait. Using her to bait

 me. She hopes to throw me off balance. To make me commit

 foolishness, risk my people, risk the Cave. She plays a deep

 and dangerous game, that one."

   "She tried our defenses once before. I do not think she is

 eager to try them soon again. She mocks at the Cave, but she

 could not break its protection."

   "No. She prefers to bait me with my innocent kinswoman.

 Well, she was ignorant of much, was Madame. Certainly she

  

 did not think I knew Marianne well enough to follow where

 she had sent Marianne, to follow and let her out of Madame's

 place into one of her own. Madame may learn soon that Mari-

 anne is gone from her limbo, but she will not know where.

 We start even, then, neither of us knowing where she is." He

 laughed harshly before sipping again at the tea, swung his feet

 over the side of the bed and rose. "I must try to make a call

 to Alphenlicht."

  "Everything will be packed by now. We can go tonight."

  "I wish we could go. I need the Cave of Light, Ellat. I need

 the Cave and our people. But if I am ever to find Marianne,

 it has to be from here."

  "Aghrehond?"

  "I sent him after her. Poor thing. Everything is twisted where

 she is, names and people and places and times. All moves as

 in disguise, strangely warped. In this world of Madame's the

 pitiable emigre's have no memory of what they were, or only

 fragments. All has been wiped away. Nothing could wipe her

 character, of course, and the courage shines through like a little

 star. Still, she suffers under it."

  "You say Aghrehond is with her. Where?"

  He laughed, a short bark of vicious laughter, at her, at

 himself, at the world. "Lord of Light, Ellat, that's why I need

 the Cave. I don't know where she has gone. The only way out

 from the border worlds is into one's own world. She went into

 her own place, one of her own places-I don't know how

 many there may be. If she was a woman of some imagination,

 there might be thousands. Or perhaps only one. Whichever it

 may be, I must find her. / must find her."

  "What will you do?" She was hushed before his vehemence,

 a little awed by it, thinking she had not seen him like this

 before, not over a woman.

  He sighed. "I will eat something, if you can find something

 here or bring something from that place on the boulevard. I'll

 take a shower. That place made me feel slimy. I'll call-who?

 Who would be best? Nalavi? Cyram? Since I can't go to the

 Cave, they must do it for me. I'll call some of our people at

 the embassy and set them on Harvey's trail, and on Tahiti's. I

 want to know where they are in this world, if they are here at

 all. And then I'll try to think what to do next."

  

   Outside Marianne's window the pink leaves of the oak un-

 curled like tiny baby hands, gesturing helplessly at the world

 beyond. The curtains remained closed. Downstairs, Mrs. Wine-

 sap turned in her half sleep, sat up suddenly to say to Mr.

 Larkin, "Did you hear that? What was that?" To be answered

 only by a snore, a riffle of wind. Unsatisfied, she lay back

 down to sleep. There was the sound of a car driving away,

 then returning. Feet moved restlessly over their heads. Then

 silence, only silence. The house was still, still, as though wait-

 ing.

  

 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 in-

 dustrious. 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 un-

 derwear 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.

   On each of the first several afternoons, rather late, Marianne

 had been sent on an errand of one kind or another: to take

 books to a room in the sub-basement; to find books in the fourth

 floor annex; to take papers to the special collection room on

 the mezzanine-all of them places difficult to find or return

 from. She had been at first surprised and later angered to find

 all the staff gone when she returned, the doors locked tight,

 the outside visible only through the vast, chill slabs of glass

 in the main entry. Each evening at this time it rained, glossing

 the pavements and translating the sounds of cars into sinister

 hisses which combined with the tangle of brass railings to make

  

 her think of feculent pits aswarm with serpents. It was better

 to go back to her desk, to that single warm light, to work there

 until weariness made it impossible to work any longer, than to

 stay in the chilly chasm of the lobby beside those transparent

 but impassable doors.

  When both darkness and weariness overcame her, she felt

 her way down the wide marble flight, carefully centered in

 order not to touch the railings, around the comer to the small

 door-discouragingly labeled "Authorized Personnel Only"-

 then down the pit-black funnel of the basement stairs to the

 washroom and light. From there it was only a step or two to

 the tea room where panties and collar could be laid wet upon

 the table, wrinkles smoothed; where a handful of biscuits could

 serve for supper, washed down by a mouthful of cold tea; where

 the tin-topped jar could be turned to beam its pale blot onto

 the place she would sleep; and to dream of dusty wings beating

 against glass. She always folded her trousers over the back of

 a chair, thankful for the plain, dark uniform which did not show

 dirt or wrinkles.

  At first light she wakened, terrified that she might have

 overslept and be about to be caught in semi-nakedness, rem-

 nants of dream catching at her to drag her back into sleep.

 After washing and dressing herself she became calmer, able to

 hide in the washroom and emerge when others arrived, as

 though she herself had just come to work. Some member of

 the staff always brought rolls, sometimes fruit, though whether

 this was done spontaneously or by arrangement Marianne never

 knew. The provender made up the larger part of her day's food,

 and she had learned to sneak an extra roll or second orange to

 hide in her desk. At 8:50 the assistant librarians reported to the

 head librarian, a single line of them neatly clad in the same

 white-collared uniform which cost Marianne so much anxiety.

 Many shadowy figures, Marianne among them, watched this

 assembly from above while the roll was called to the accom-

 paniment of dignified banter suitable to the profession, and

 finally to the clang and thwock of bolts withdrawn from the

 top and bottom of the main doors.

   Usually one or more patrons waited outside, strolling about

 on the brick paved portico or leaning against the glass to peer

 within through cupped hands at the lobby clock. Then the staff

  

 members trooped upstairs to their desks, the doors began swing-

 ing as patrons entered, and the day began.

   Though none of the staff ever spoke to her directly, Marianne

 was not conscious of any ostracism. There was such indirection

 in the affairs of the library that she believed no one really spoke

 to anyone else, ever. Information seemed always to be con-

 veyed in passive statements. "The door to the muniments room

 needs to have a hinge repaired" rather than "Mr. Gerald, please

 repair the hinge." This inherent passivity had much to do with

 the fact, thought Marianne, that the door to the muniments

 room was not repaired for days although its need for repair had

 been plaintively stated half a dozen times. Thus, Marianne

 might be given some task by a half-aborted gesture from an

 assistant librarian directing her attention to a small pile of books

 while a statement was directed somewhere over her left shoul-

 der, "Those should be in the sub-basement storage area," or

 "There's space in the shelves of the Alchemy stacks for those."

 Mr. Gerald, an insouciant figure who arrived occasionally to

 have long, confidential talks with the head librarian or the

 doorman, seemed oblivious to these gentle requests. Marianne

 wondered why she, almost alone among the staff, always acted

 upon these indirect requirements when virtually all the others

 seemed able to ignore them completely.

   She also asked herself what the staff did all day. Though

 there was a constant movement to and fro, a flutter of paper

 and a wheeling of carts about, no one ever seemed to bring

 books in or take them out. She thought at first it might be the

 kind of library which was devoted to research on the premises,

 full of important works and rare volumes. This thought would

 have been comforting, but she could not reconcile the idea with

 the actual subject matter of many of the books on the shelves.

 Some were of an obscenity she found shocking; others lacked

 sense; some had pictures so vile that she had to cover the pages

 while working away with her mending tape and glue. There

 were always loose backs to be fastened on securely, notes to

 be erased from margins, pages to be mended, labels to be

 lettered and affixed. Each morning a cart of such work awaited

 her arrival at her desk, and each afternoon the cart disappeared,

 taken away by one of the porters, she supposed, though she

 had never actually seen it happen. Upon this constant main-

  

 tenance work were imposed the errands, obliquely stated. "Some

 periodicals in the Sorcery section need to go to storage." "They

 need a binder clamp up in Thaumaturgy." The same diffidence

 which undoubtedly prevented the assistant librarian from di-

 rectly ordering Marianne to do these things also prevented

 Marianne from questioning them. Once she woke late at night

 with the words, "Where in hell am I to find a binder clamp!"

 upon her tongue, only to flush and curl more tightly into herself

 upon the couch. To have spoken those words aloud would have

 been to break some fragile pretense upon which the library and

 Marianne's whole existence depended.

   She spent much time carrying books away to the sub-base-

 ments, adding them to the endless, tottery stacks which filled

 corridor after corridor of rooms. When books were sent to

 storage, they had faded almost to monochrome, page and print

 alike in yellowed tan, the print a mere shadow of fading lines.

 She never found the bottommost of the sub-basements. Her

 imagination told her that the rooms of faded books ranked

 downward forever, into infinity. Some of the rooms nearer

 ground level held a clutter of miscellany which might have

 been left over from a time when some other occupant had used

 the building.

   In one room a line of dress forms stood along a wall, vo-

 luptuous bosoms thrust in various directions like the snouts of

 questing animals, turtles perhaps, hunting food in the dim un-

 derwater light. Another room held cases of stuffed birds, parrots

 and lyre birds and toucans, and still another was almost filled

 with broken furniture. In this room she found a dusty blue

 blanket which looked almost unused. She beat it free of dust

 before carrying it to her couch, sighing with contentment. While

 the room was warm enough, there had been something indecent

 and dangerous about sleeping half naked with no cover. The

 blanket became her walls and doors at once. She ate her biscuits

 while stroking it and curled up beneath it early in the evening

 to savor the scratchy security of it next to her face. That night

 she slept without waking, and when she did waken, much later

 than usual, it was with the dream clear in her memory. She

 had been collecting butterflies, huge, brilliant insects which

 fluttered away before her net only to be captured and thrust

 into her collection jar where they beat their wings against the

  

 confining glass, shedding the delicate powder from their wings,

 breaking the membranes, becoming motionless. Then she had

 been in the jar with them, feeling the feathery blows of those

 wings as they beat and beat against the glass, seeing the rainbow

 dust which fell from them onto her own bare arms and shoulders

 and breasts so that she became as brilliantly colored as they.

 She lay for a long time thinking of this dream, slow tears

 gathering beneath her eyelids.

   Eventually, she rose, folded the blanket lengthwise, and hid

 it beneath the cushions. Several times during the day she went

 to the tea room to see if it was still there. She slept with it

 close around her every night thereafter.

   Some time after this one of the assistant librarians spoke to

 the air across Marianne's shoulder saying that Mr. Grassi would

 be researching certain literature in the small reading room later

 in the day. Later the same person, still speaking to the vacant

 and unresponsive air, said that Mr.Grassi would need the books

 reserved for him in the thaumaturgy section. Marianne under-

 stood this to mean that she should find the books in Thau-

 maturgy and deliver them to Reading. As was the case with

 most locations in the building, both Thaumaturgy and Reading

 were uncertain. She was sometimes amazed that she always

 seemed to be able to get to any place indicated by these oblique

 instructions. This time she referred to the large chart hanging

 behind the head librarian's desk and was able to puzzle out a

 route to and from. She was approaching the small reading room

 when she heard the doorman say behind her, "Good afternoon,

 Mr. Grassi," and was able to follow the strange hunched figure

 thus addressed as it moved between two stacks and through

 the half hidden door. She caught the door as it closed and

 entered.

   He was seated at the round table set in an arc of window,

 peering through the one transparent pane at the narrow view

 of the garden outside. Tattered lilies bloomed there under the

 lash of a cold wind, and the man's head nodded in time with

 their nodding as though the wind blew him as well. When she

 put the books at his elbow, he turned to look directly into her

 eyes. "The books I ordered?" he asked.

   Tears spilled down her cheeks before she was aware of them,

  

 pouring across her face in forked runnels, wetting the sides of

 her nose, the corners of her mouth, dripping untidily from her

 chin. She fumbled for a tissue, blotting her face, apologizing

 while Mr. Grass! engaged in a strange little dance of compas-

 sion which he wove about her out of pats and pokes and jigging

 steps.

   "I'm sorry," she said angrily. "I don't know what got into

 me."He had pulled out a chair for her, bumping it into her legs

 from behind with such vigor that she fell into it. "My dear,

 my dear," he said, emphasizing each word with another pat of

 his pawlike little hands. "Please don't cry, my dear."

   Marianne wiped away another freshet, confused by the trou-

 bled face before her. His mouth was open, the tip of his tongue

 showing at one side of it in an expression of such comical and

 doggy concern that she almost laughed. "You looked directly

 at me," she sobbed. "They don't do that here. They don't see

 me." And having said this she was aware for the first time of

 its truth. Indeed. They did not see her; they did not see one

 another. They lived, if this was living, and worked and were

 without true knowledge of one another, acting at every moment

 in the faith, perhaps only the hope, that others were there, but

 without the evidence of it. Perhaps it was only that things did,

 eventually, happen in response to their expressed hopes or needs

 which made them believe that others were present, that others

 heard, saw, felt, did. "They don't see me!" she asserted again,

 "But you did. It made me cry!"

   Unaware of her revelation, he attempted comfort which she

 did not need. Their mutual incomprehension straggled into

 silence. He sat looking at her, tongue still caught between his

 teeth as though it were too long to be completely withdrawn.

 Marianne blotted herself dry and said, "The people here at the

 library do not look at one. I realize now that they can't. But

 it's nerve-wracking never to be noticed, seen. So, when you

 did, I was so grateful to know that I'm actually here."

   He shook his head, not in confusion or negation, but as

 though in commiseration. "But of course you are here, my

 dear. That's the whole thing, isn't it. You are here, and we

 don't want you here at all." They both subsided after this. She

  

 did not feel she had explained, and she had not understood

 what he had just said, but they were convinced of one another's

 good will.

   "May I get you anything else?" she asked, suddenly con-

 scious of her position as staff.

   "Not at all. We have the two I asked for: Doing and Undoing,

 and here is Macravail's To Hold Forever. Macravail is the

 authority on malign enchantment, of course." He tipped his

 head to one side so that his eyes were almost above one another

 as he regarded her from this strange angle. "Can I do anything

 for you?" This offer, the last word whispered in an intensely

 confidential tone, caught her so by surprise that she shook her

 head, saying, no, no, not at all, before she realized she could

 have said, yes, of course, you can help me escape. But the

 moment had passed, he had turned to the books and was now

 reading while one finger tap-tapped at the page. The picture

 on the page was familiar, and Marianne stared at it for a long

 time over his shoulder before creeping out and away to her

 own place to work there while the light from the window swung

 slowly from right to left as the morning gave way to late

 afternoon. The inevitable errand materialized to take her to the

 fourth mezzanine just before the doors were locked, but after-

 ward she did not go either to her desk or to the tea room.

   Instead, moved by some obscure impulse she could not have

 explained, she went back to the reading room where Mr. Grassi

 had spent the day. The room was empty, the books lying on

 the table. She took up the one titled To Hold Forever, thinking

 to take it to her own desk for a while. Through the single

 transparent pane of the window she saw persons gathering in

 the garden, pushing through the shrubbery to crowd at the side

 of the building to lie down there with their heads and shoulders

 hidden. She knew then that the staff tea room lay immediately

 below this room and that the persons gathered outside were

 those who peered so greedily in upon her if she was unwary

 enough to leave the lights on. From above they looked ominous,

 bulky and amorphous, as though constructed of shadows. She

 did not attract their attention as she took the book away.

   At her own desk she turned the pages one by one but was

 unable to find the familiar picture. Faces stared at her from the

  

 pages, demon faces, ordinary faces, bulky forms like those in

 the garden, long pages of incomprehensible words. She left

 the book in the reading room before she went downstairs.

 Evidently the page she sought was one only Mr. Grassi could

 find. She did not find this idea at all surprising.

   She was waiting for him when he arrived the next day as

 she had somehow known he would. She blocked the aisle

 leading to the reading room, giving him no room to walk around

 her, ready for the question she had known he would ask. "Is

 there anything I can do for you?" to which she replied, "Will

 you open the book for me, please?" It was not quite what she

 had planned to say, but it was close enough.

   He led her into the room, opened the book upon the table,

 holding it with one hand as he guided her own to the heavy

 pages. "It won't stay open unless you hold it," he said. He

 waited patiently for her to refuse or ask other questions, but

 she had done what she planned to do and could think of nothing

 else. He left her then, and she sat in his place at the table to

 examine the picture of herself, seated on the couch in the tea

 room, the light falling dimly through the high, barred window.

 The text on the facing page began, "Her 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..." It went on,

 ending at the bottom of the page, "But she had done what she

 planned to do and could think of nothing else."

   She could not believe what she had read, dared not close

 the book or turn the page. She read it again and yet again, not

 needing to have read it at all.

   She was brought to her sense of time by a scratching at the

 window which proved to be one of the shadowy peerers, ev-

 idently balanced upon the shoulders of one of his fellows to

 press half his face against the transparent glass and stare in at

 her, mouth making fish motions, words she could not lip read

 and wanted not to hear. Holding the book carefully open with

 one hand, Marianne turned out the light. A muttering outside

 the window became a crashing sound and a louder shouting

 then with tones of anger. The peerer-in had fallen. She sat for

 a long time without being able to make up her mind whether

 to take the book to her own desk or to carry it down to her

  

 couch or leave it where it was. In the end she did none of

 these, merely sat where she was, staring blankly at the wall

 until she fell asleep sitting upright to wake in the dim gray of

 morning now knowing where she was. When Mr. Grassi came

 in, much later, to take the book from her, she was so cramped

 she could hardly stand.

   This time she was completely ready for his question, an

 almost hysterical readiness hi which her answer nearly preceded

 his question. "Can I do anything for you?" was uttered almost

 simultaneously with "Help me! For God's sake, help me!"

  

 "MY DEAR," HE SAID, "I will, of course, if I may."

   Much later Marianne was to wonder at his choice of words,

 his saying "If I may," rather than "If I can." At the moment,

 she heard only the "I will, of course," and let herself fall upon

 these words as a starving animal upon food, ravenous and

 unheeding of any other thing. She hung upon his arm while he

 patted at her, still panting, tongue protruding at the corner of

 his mouth, eyes full of seemingly uncomprehending concern.

   It was this expression which told her he did not know what

 she needed or wanted, and that she must go further than she

 had gone in imagination or all her efforts would be lost. She

 must define the inexplicable, demand assistance for a condition

 which she could not define. "I am not mad," she said tenta-

 tively. "Truly, I am not mad."

   No, his expression seemed to say, of course not. You are

 distressed, only distressed. It was not enough.

   "I cannot get out of the library," she said. "I can't get out.

 Please, do not think I'm crazy when I tell you this. It's true.

 I cannot escape. Help me." There, it was said, and nothing

 she could add to it or take from it would make it clearer.

  

   He moved away from her, his dancing little feet carrying

 him in short, jigging steps to the window and, from it, to the

 bookshelves and, from them, to the mantlepiece-the reading

 room had a large and ornate mantle stretching elegant gilt and

 inlays above a mingy gas fire-and from it, warbling a little

 aggrieved sound, like a frustrated cricket caught in a dilemma

 of its own making. At last he came to rest in the bowed window,

 bent forward a little to peer through the one clear pane, hands

 behind him as he rocked upon his heels and toes, up and down

 again, like some children's toy sent into ceaseless motion by

 a restless hand.

   "The answers to everything are in the books," he said to

 her. "It is in knowing which books, of course, and where to

 look. Most of the people in this city cannot get into the library,

 you understand that?" He cast her a sharp, questioning look,

 began to warble again.

   "I read the book you opened for me," she said stubbornly,

 wondering if he were testing her or would question her upon

 the contents of that book. "I did read it."

   "Of course. And I'm sure the answer is there. Would you

 like for me to open it again?" He turned to meet her silence,

 her baffled quiet which hid bursting volcanos of weary rebellion

 and panic.

   "It wasn't," she whispered. 'Truly it wasn't. It was only

 my story. Mine. And I already know it."

   'Tsk. Well, we often say we know things when we are only

 familiar with them, you know. My dear, I have spent all the

 time today that is safe. Let me give you my card. When you

 have read again, I'm sure you'll find it useful. You will find

 me there any morning. It may be dangerous to be on the streets

 after noon. Let me open the book for you again and settle you

 comfortably, so. Now I must run."

   And she was seated once again as she had been for a day

 and a night, the light of the brass table lamp upon the picture

 of her own face staring up from the basement room. She could

 see every detail of that room; the couch, the floor, the high

 barred window with the faces in it, the tea urn, the jar of stale

 biscuits. Even on the page their staleness was manifest, part

 of the design intended by the artist, part of the story. The

  

 staleness was intentional, as was the dust, the stuffed birds in

 the basement, the writhing railings beside the stairway. Under

 her fingers was the card he had given her. Cani Grassi, Con-

 sultant, Eight Manticore Street. The card was very heavy, more

 like metal than paper, with a design embossed upon its back.

 She ran her fingers over it, feeling a glow, a warm tingling

 which grew as she pressed the card to her face then thrust it

 down her neck, safe beneath a strap. Gradually the warmth

 died, though she could feel the pressure of the card against her

 skin, the sharp demarcation of comers beside her breast bone.

   She sat until dark, staring at the window, caught in a timeless

 eddy of despair which allowed no movement or thought. Then

 the faces pressed against the pane in the window drew her

 attention and sent her into a spasm of weary revulsion. She

 turned out the light and made her way to the washroom, the

 book still open in her hands. She sat in one of the cubicles,

 her trousers around her knees, to read the story again and again.

 There was nothing new in it. When her eyes were so heavy

 she could not keep them focused, she struggled through a final

 sentence: "She was sometimes amazed that she always seemed

 to be able to get to any place indicated by these oblique in-

 structions." Then there was only wakefulness enough left to

 get to her couch and stretch out upon it, the book open beneath

 the cushions and herself wrapped into the timeless security of

 her blanket.

   When she woke, it was to remember the last thing she had

 read. Her first act was to recover the book and read the sentence

 once again. She was sometimes amazed that she always seemed

 to be able to get to any place indicated by these oblique in-

 structions. The solution was clear in her mind, including all

 the tortuous steps she would need to go through to accomplish

 it. Someone in the library must be induced to tell her that

 something-some book, some paper, some item of equipment

 was needed outside. Outside!

   But first she had to eat, to drink, to wash herself and comb

 her hair, to be ordinary, customary. Even if they could not truly

 see her, there must be nothing in the atmosphere at all different.

 "I must be an ordinary ghost," she said with some cheer. "A

 usual ghost, giving no evidence of untoward haunting beyond

 the acceptable routine." When all did, indeed, go as usual

  

 during the day, she was made confident enough to approach

 the chart which hung behind the head librarian's desk.

   The portico was on the chart. The areaway where deliveries

 were made was shown. The small, walled courtyard outside

 the board room was labeled. The garden outside the reading

 room where she had met Cani Grassi did not appear on the

 chart. She had looked out at that garden, at the swath of lawn,

 the ragged edging of shrubbery. There was no wall, no fence,

 and it was not upon the chart. Marianne took comfort from

 this. What was not on the chart would not be a pan of the

 library, no matter how close it lay.

   And a place which did not lie on the chart would not be

 mentioned by any of the assistant librarians. Not today, she

 thought, nor tomorrow. But later-yes. Later, someone would

 mention it.

   That night she sat in the reading room until dark, her mes-

 sage carefully prepared on a sheet of paper, the light on to

 attract the peerers. When she heard the first sound of them,

 she moved to the window to hold her message against the clear

 pane where they could not fail to see it. "If you will put a sign

 out there saying NEW STORAGE AREA, I will bring you

 some books." There was a confused mumbling from outside.

 She thought she heard the words of her message repeated in a

 rumbling voice, then again in a higher tone with fringes of

 hysteria. A confused chattering preceded a tap at the window.

 She moved her own paper away to see a message pressed

 against the pane from outside. "One book first. Book name

 Eternal Blood. Put out coal chute."

   She did not know the book or where it could be found nor,

 for that matter, where the coal chute was. Still, if they were

 in the building, presumably they could be found. She wrote

 on the back of her paper, pressed it to the pane: "I'll try."

 Outside was only silence. When she looked through the win-

 dow, there were only the shadows thrown by the street lamps

 and passing cars, nothing else. Throughout all the days, weeks-

 perhaps longer-that she had worked in the library, she had

 discovered no system of indexing, no catalogue listing titles or

 authors. She knew that finding the book would have to occur

 in the way everything in the library happened, by indirection

 and repetition. Though she had little confidence in the attempt,

  

 having seen nothing communicated in writing heretofore, she

 left notes on various desks saying that Eternal Blood needed

 to be taken to the reading room. She replaced these notes at

 intervals, for they vanished even from desks at which no one

 was observed working.

   She had had no great hopes for this in any case. Her best

 efforts went into repetition. Whenever she found herself within

 the hearing of some other library employee, she would say in

 a plaintive voice that the book Eternal Blood was needed in

 the reading room. She set herself the goal of saying this one

 hundred times during the first three days, and when she went

 to her rest each night it was with an honest weariness coming

 from much running about during the day to put herself within

 hearing of shadowy figures which seemed to dissolve from one

 place to another in a most unsteadying fashion. The days fol-

 lowed one another. Had she not observed the great length of

 time it took for messages to be received and acted upon, she

 would have despaired, but she had estimated it would take at

 least seven or eight days for anything at all to happen. Thus it

 was with some degree of surprise that she found the book in

 the reading room on the fifth day after Mr. Grassi's last visit.

   It lay atop the books Mr. Grassi had requested, massive,

 covered in black leather with lettering in red. Marianne opened

 it only once before shutting it with a shudder which recurred

 all afternoon. It was a book devoted to the subject of torment.

 Marianne did not ask herself what the peerers might want with

 it, knowing that conscience might rise out of her confusion to

 attack her if she thought about it. It was enough that the book

 was the one named, the one which might buy her a way out.

   Finding the coal chute had been an easy thing in comparison,

 a matter of prowling the dim corridors of the sub-basement in

 search of a furnace and finding a monstrous iron octopus at

 last which bellowed and roared at her as she passed, emitting

 agonized groans and fitful breaths of fiery heat. She had crept

 by it fearfully, crouching under its widespread tentacles which

 reached out through the walls and upward into the flesh of the

 place.

   As she ducked beneath one of these great, hollow arms, she

 heard from within it a distant, mocking chuckle carried down

 through heaven knew what floors and annexes and lofty mez-

  

 zanines from some high, remote place where someone laughed.

 It was a derisory laugh. Had it been repeated, Marianne felt

 she would not have had the courage to go on, but the sound

 did not come again. In a little room behind the furnace she

 found the coal chute, too high for her to reach until she fetched

 a broken chair from the room of furniture and mounted it

 unsteadily to open the corroded hatch, thrust the book through,

 and then, half losing her balance, let the hatch fall with a dull,

 hideous clang like the lid of a coffin or vault.

   The building fell silent, as though listening. The furnace

 did not roar or breathe. When Marianne crept up the stairs and

 into the lobby, it was into this same ominous silence. At every

 desk heads were cocked, eyes staring as though each one waited

 for motion, any motion, to identify who had been responsible

 for the sound. She did not move, merely crouched beside the

 door, as silent and unmoving as they, until someone coughed

 and the spell was broken. She had not been perceived, she told

 herself, thankful for the first time that they simply did not see

 her. She went to her couch that night with a sense of fruition.

 The next step waited on those outside, and she listened in the

 dark quiet to know whether they had found the book or not.

 It had not been dark long when she heard them cheering, a

 species of rejoicing with overtones of hysteria and despair. Then

 a flickering light came through the window and she knew they

 had lighted a fire. From her place she could see shadows as

 leaping figures capered and gamboled. Were they burning the

 book? She was more pleased than otherwise to think they might

 have disposed of it, and with it whatever damage it might have

 done. A daytime view of the garden affirmed her assumption,

 for the scars of fire were there as well as scraps of black which

 she could identify as bits of the binding, some with lines of

 red lettering still visible. She paid little attention to these, for

 the signboard drew her eyes, a nicely varnished board supported

 by two uprights, lettered in black and gold as though by a

 professional sign painter: NEW STORAGE AREA. Very well.

 She planned the next step.

   But all her plans were delayed by a bustle in the library, a

 boiling, a throbbing of purpose as it was announced by the

 head librarian that a meeting of the Library Board of Trustees

  

 was to take place within hours, short hours, perhaps on the

 morrow. The morning lineup of assistant librarians was thrown

 into confusion by this proclamation, and the usual plaintive

 statement gained an immediacy of effect which Marianne had

 not seen before. The large double doors to the Board Room

 were opened for the first time she could remember. Books and

 papers which had cluttered the approach to this room were

 carried away. Even Mr. Gerald arrived unannounced and was

 seen to carry a pile of volumes away to some other place. The

 room was cleaned and the windows opened to air it out; a fire

 was laid upon the hearth, one surmounted by an overmantle

 of such complexity to make the one in the reading room seem

 simple in comparison. The activity took most of the day, during

 which time everyone's attention was fixed and could not have

 been diverted.

   The meeting was held in the late afternoon, after all the

 staff had gone except the head librarian. The usual shadowy

 figures which Marianne equated with porters or janitors were

 nowhere to be seen. She herself had considered hiding in the

 washroom or the tea room, in some empty room of a sub-

 basement, perhaps in a hidey hole hollowed out among the

 broken furniture, but the thought of being hidden while this

 strange, new activity went on was outweighed by her need to

 see and know what would occur. The juxtaposition of this

 meeting and the destruction of the book which she, Marianne,

 had put out the coal chute was significant to her. A book had

 been burned; a meeting had been called-both notable events

 and perhaps not unconnected. At last she decided to cache

 herself in a far front corner of the third mezzanine, a pocket

 of shadow above the light of the shaded chandelier which hung

 one level below this to wet the lobby floor with its weak, watery

 light. From this vantage point she could see the members as

 they arrived, see them obsequiously, even cravenly greeted by

 the head librarian. The chairman arrived last of all, and Mari-

 anne heard the head librarian say, "Good evening, Madame

 Delubovoska..."

   The drawling voice which answered filled the lobby, as-

 cended to the green skylight far above, moved inexorably out-

 ward from the place of utterance to the balcony edges, thrust

 through the banisters to flow into the aisles of books, soaking

  

 each volume in turn so that the very bindings became redolent

 with that sound, not echoing but vibrating nonetheless in a

 reverberating hum larger than the building itself, a seeking

 pressure which left no corner unexplored. The words did not

 matter, could not be heard. The voice mattered, for it took

 possession of all it touched, penetrated and amalgamated into

 itself all that it reached.

   Marianne saw the voice, saw the shudder of it go forth

 through the structure, a tremorous wave as in a sheet shaken

 by the wind, the returning vibration trembling through the coiled

 railings. She felt the shudder in the same instant she felt Mr.

 Grassi's card begin to burn upon her shoulder with a pervasive

 heat which covered her and radiated from her. Her hand lay

 upon the railing; she felt the lash as the brazen circlets uncoiled

 to reveal flat, triangular serpents' heads, mouths gaping with

 fangs extended, striking from among the knots of bronze acan-

 thus to shed venom like rain upon the stacks below. One serpent

 struck a hands width from her hand, and on the lobby floor

 beneath she could see the serpents gliding in their tangled

 thousands.

   The warmth which came from the card at her shoulder sur-

 rounded her, close as the blanket she had found, so that she

 looked out upon madness from the security of her own impen-

 etrable shell, as marvelous as it was unexpected. In all that

 lofty, ramified building there was only this one flaw in the

 fabric of the place, this one error in calculation of resonances,

 this one gap in the fatal architecture of the building to allow a

 small sphere of warm protection where the voice did not reach.

 She saw the serpents strike and strike again while the woman

 walked with the head librarian through the doors of the Board

 Room, saw them coil again into those baroque tangles from

 which they had emerged, and knew that she had been reprieved,

 saved, by some intent she had known nothing of. Had that

 voice fallen on unprotected ears she would have been bitten,

 poisoned, dead.

   When the members of the board had shut the great doors

 behind them, Marianne stayed where she was, not daring to

 move so much as an inch to the right or left, as sure of her

 safety in that one place as she had ever been sure of anything

 and as sure of her jeopardy if she moved as she was sure she

  

 had heard nemesis in the voice of Madame Delubovoska.

  The meeting was not long, barely long enough to offer an

 excuse for the assembly to have met at all. When they had

 gone, truly gone, she came down from her perch at last, slowly,

 sniffing the air as for fire or some odorous beast. All was as

 usual to the eyes, to the nose, to the ears, but she knew that

 something had sought to smoke her out, and she knew that

 every previous threat had been multiplied a hundredfold; every

 previous shadow folded upon itself to a deeper opacity; every

 mystery stirred into menace and jelled. Only the remaining

 tingle of Mr. Grassi's card against her skin, only the sound of

 whisperers at the windows demanding books, books she had

 promised, brought her to full determination again.

   From that time on, whenever books were mentioned, Mari-

 anne would say, "You said the New Storage Area, didn't you,

 Librarian?" Whenever she was within hearing range of any

 'figure, she would say, "Those books should be taken to the

 New Storage Area." So it went, day by day by day. She had

 become so accustomed to failure that success almost eluded

 her. Almost she missed the assistant librarian's gesture toward

 the pile of books on her desk. Almost she missed the figure's

 quiet voice saying in the usual indirect manner, "These books

 belong in the New Storage Area."

   Marianne gathered them up. There were six or seven, not

 a heavy load. She had kept the two books Mr. Grassi had asked

 for on her desk for days, for it was her intention to take these

 as well. If they were useful inside the library, they would be

 doubly useful outside, or so she reasoned. She added them to

 the pile and started for the door, sure someone would stop her.

 The doorman ignored her. She leaned against the glassy slab,

 feeling it move reluctantly before her slight weight, stepped

 through onto the portico. She trembled as she went down the

 steps and around the comer to the garden, to the sign. The

 shrubbery was full of shadows and eyes. Those who had danced,

 cheered, whispered through high windows were there, just out

 of sight, watching her through the foliage with greedy intensity.

 She dropped all the books but her two and fled back to the

 sidewalk, hearing them scrambling behind her. One of them

 came after her, not threatening, merely following; she could

 hear the scrape of shoes.

  

   Against her skin was the card Mr. Grassi had given her.

 Behind her in the library was only an enormous quiet. Behind

 her on the sidewalk the muffled steps came on, hesitant but

 determined, giving notice they would go wherever she chose

 to go.

  

 SHE HAD BEEN so intent upon leaving the library that she had

 spent little time planning what to do once she had escaped.

 She would, of course, find her way to Number Eight Manticore

 Street. She assumed that she would be able to ask directions,

 that conditions outside the library would be somehow different

 from conditions inside it. However, there was no one to ask.

 The footsteps behind her, persistent though they were, did not

 indicate a visible person to whom a question could be directed.

 She found herself walking through a neighborhood of narrow-

 fronted houses which stared nearsightedly at her over high

 stoops and scraps of entryway relieved only by tattered yews

 and spectral cypresses. An iron-fenced square centered this

 area, a stretch of weedy grass around a dilapidated bandstand

 where shreds of paint flickered like pennants in the light wind.

 She went on walking. The houses gave way to massive, win-

 dowless warehouses, every wall plastered with colored posters,

 layer on layer, variously tattered, all showing human figures,

 the irregular tearing and layering offering odd, sometimes ob-

 scene juxtapositions of hands, breasts, groins, and mouths.

 Occasionally a figure was untorn, almost whole, and all of

  

 these seemed to be fleeing from her as though she saw them

 from the back, though faces were sometimes turned over shoul-

 ders in expressions of terror. Soon the warehouses gave way

 to smaller buildings, dirt-fronted and surrounded by bits of

 rusty machinery, and then came open country stretching in a

 featureless plain to a distant wall which ran endlessly upon the

 horizon.

   In all this way there had been no person, no living thing,

 no sound except for the hesitant steps far behind her. Sighing,

 she turned to her left for a few blocks before returning on a

 course parallel to her original one. She began to see shops on

 the side streets, some of them overhanging the street in the

 archaic manner of fairy tale illustrations. The buildings here

 were plastered with the same type of paper posters she had

 seen on the warehouses. A little farther on the shops invaded

 the street she walked upon; a news kiosk, papers arrayed on

 the counter, caught her eye. The headline displayed on the

 paper said LIBRARY BOARD DISCUSSES THEFT, VAN-

 DALISM. The story beneath told of a minor clerical employee

 who had taken and wantonly destroyed some books. Desecra-

 tion, said the paper. Citizens were alerted to apprehend, ob-

 serve, notify.

   Her panic could have been observable a block away, she

 knew. How had there been time to print anything about her

 escape? It had only just happened. They must have known her

 plans before she herself was aware of their fruition. Or-it

 was someone else, not herself that they sought. And how could

 they seek her? They had never seen her. The story named the

 person: Mildred Cobb.

   Nonsense, thought Marianne. I am not Mildred Cobb. I am

 Marianne... Marianne... someone. Fear spoke within, self

 speaking to self. "How do you know? Could you prove this?

 Would they believe you? You are carrying stolen books. You

 are wearing the library uniform."

   There was no one around her, no one to see her, and yet

 she felt eyes running upon her skin like insect feet. A bookstore

 stood behind the kiosk, its interior a well of dusky emptiness.

 When she entered it the bell gave a strangled jingle rapidly

 drowned in the oing, oing, oing of the spring on which it hung,

 a tinny whine. She crept to the rear of the store, pulled ancient

  

 books from shelves undisturbed for years, sneezing in the

 miasmic cloud which rose as she thrust the books and her collar

 into hiding. There. She could find them again, but no one else

 would. She started to leave, freezing hi place as heavy footsteps

 crossed the floor above her and a deep voice called.

  "Somebody? You want something?"

  She gasped, managed to choke out, "A map of the city?

 You have a city map?"

  "Behind the counter. You want it, leave the money." The

 footsteps crossed over her once more; the creak of springs

 capitalized the silence which followed, a statement of condi-

 tion.There was no Manticore Street on the map. When she re-

 turned to the street, she went on as she had been, noting the

 signpost at the corner so that she could find the place again,

 chanting it to herself as she went, "Billings and Twelfth. Bill-

 ings and Twelfth." She had gone a dozen blocks more before

 she saw the first person. Then there were several, a woman

 with a dog, two men talking, then tens of them.

  There was a grocery store, cartons of fruit and vegetables

 on the sidewalk, jicama and artichokes, thrilps and fresh fennel.

 Here a pharmacy, an alchemist's, a coffee shop with a sign in

 the window, "Dishwasher wanted." Here a church from which

 solemn music oozed like rendered fat. Here an augurer's post,

 a dealer in leather goods, a feticheur. She moved among these

 places as though dreaming, surrounded by life and smells and

 sound, acutely aware of weariness and hunger. When this busy

 center ended hi vacant streets once more, she turned to walk

 through it again, stopping at the coffee shop. She had no money.

 She needed food.

  "Dishwasher?" she asked the stout woman with her sleeves

 rolled to her shoulders. "The job as dishwasher?"

  "Last dishwasher I had the Inquisitors took two days ago.

 The one before that drank. You drink?"

  Marianne shook her head, confused. "Not-not what you

 mean, no. I'd drink something now, though. I haven't had

 anything all day."

  "Ah. On Manticore Street, are you? Well, I've been there

 more than once. You got a place to stay? No. Well, bunk on

 the cot in the storeroom until you find a place. Get yourself

  

 some food in the kitchen, then you can start in on those pans."

   The bowl of soup was half gone before the woman's words

 made sense to Marianne. "Manticore Street, are you?" Well,

 then, it was a known place. She thought of it as she ate, as

 she scrubbed pots, smelling the fatty soap smell of the sink,

 the good meat smell of the kitchen. When darkness came, the

 woman, Helen, shut the door and got ready to leave. Marianne

 asked, "Why do you say, 'on Manticore Street'? Is it a real

 street?"

   "When you haven't got any money, that's being on Man-

 ticore Street," Helen said. "Because that's where the poorhouse

 and the debtor's prison are, on Twelfth Street, where the Man-

 ticore is. You're a stranger here, aren't you? No, don't tell me

 anything. I don't want to know. Just remember, don't ask ques-

 tions of strangers, and don't stay on the streets any time on

 shut-down day. Do that, and you might last. God knows there's

 enough time to last in." She left the place with a bitter little

 laugh which sounded spare and edgy from so large a woman.

   "On Twelfth Street, where the Manticore is," said Marianne

 to herself. She would find it soon, perhaps tomorrow. Her hands

 were sore from the hot water, her feet and back ached from

 bending over the sink. Still, she felt closer to freedom than she

 had ever felt in the library. There was even a blanket on the

 cot to hug her with the same scratchy protection the blue one

 had provided.

   It was several days before she could look for Manticore

 Street. She did not want to go out in the library uniform, and

 it took a little time to earn the coins necessary to buy a bright

 scarf from the pushcart man, an old, warm cape from the used

 clothes woman, a pair of stockings to replace the ragged ones

 she had worn in the library. She watched the women in the

 place as they walked past. They were dressed as though in

 motley, bits and pieces of this and that, some carelessly, others

 with a touch of defiant flair. Still, it was apparent that any old

 thing would do well enough.

   She returned from her foray for stockings to find Helen

 reading the paper. Everyone in the city read the paper-copies

 of it littered the gutters and blew along the building fronts.

   "Tomorrow's shut-down day," said Helen, folding the paper

 into a club with which she beat the countertop in a steady thud,

  

 thud, thud. "Shut-down day. I won't be in."

   "Shut-down day?"

   "Don't be on the street after noon, girl. I mean it. There's

 plenty to eat back there in the kitchen, plenty of cleaning to

 do to keep you busy. Stay in. That's all. No-don't ask me.

 I told you. Don't ask questions."

   "You said not to ask strangers."

   "We're all strangers, girl. Just do what I tell you."

   That evening there was a tap on the window, and she looked

 out half fearfully to see a black, hunched form against the glass

 and knew it for that persistent follower who had come after

 her from the library. The watcher tapped on the window, refused

 to give up when she attempted to ignore him, but went on with

 the slow tap, tap, tap, not threatening, merely continuous until

 she could bear the sound no longer. Almost fearfully she went

 to the window to see a message thrust against the glass. "Not

 all who are here are Manticore meat! Will you join us?" She

 did not know what this meant and did not want to encourage

 the watcher, but neither did it seem wise to anger him. She

 wrote upon a napkin the word "perhaps" and held it to the

 pane. This seemed to satisfy him, for he scribbled, "I'll come

 back another time," showed it to her briefly, then disappeared

 into the wind-scattered shadows of the street. Though Marianne

 sat in the dark, watching the window for some time, he did

 not return. ____

   Marianne told herself she would retrieve her books and look

 for Number Eight Manticore Street very early in the morning,

 only for an hour or two, returning to the shop well before noon.

 She left just at first light, wearing her cape, scarf tied over her

 head. The markets were closed. There were only a few people

 on the streets. Those who moved about did so furtively, scur-

 rying short distances from this place to that like mice in a

 strange place. The odd looks directed at her made Marianne

 walk close to the buildings, staring behind her at odd moments,

 hurrying her steps. She went south on Billings, counting the

 blocks: First, Second, Third.... By the time she had come to

 Seventh the walks were completely empty. Tattered posters

 glared at her from the walls, full of reaching arms and fright-

 ened eyes. A hand showed briefly at a window, flicking a

 curtain into place.

  

   When she crossed Twelfth, she was almost running. The

 blinds were drawn in the bookstore, but the door was not

 locked. She eased it open, tiptoed to the back of the store to

 fumble out the books she had hidden there, then hurried back

 to the street, the door swinging closed behind her with its

 insistent oing, oing, oing. She turned back to Twelfth, turned

 right at the comer, searching for the numbers. Eleven. Thirteen.

 Odd numbers. The light around her was beginning to dim, to

 pulse, to waver before her eyes. She ran across the street.

 Number Six. Number Ten. No Number Eight. Panicky, she

 huddled in a doorway, seeing the street crawl before her as

 though seen through moving air or flawed glass. It couldn't be

 noon yet. Helen had said stay off the streets after noon.

   No, she cried to herself. Helen had said stay in! Her feeling

 of panic was growing. Number Six. Number Ten. East. East!

 She scurried from the doorway, turned right, pattering down

 the sidewalk with the heavy books clutched to her chest, gasp-

 ing as though she had run miles, across Billings Street where

 the numbers began again, only to stop, transfixed.

   The corner shop was Number Four, a taxidermy shop, so

 labeled in golden script which slanted across the window in

 which the Manticore poised, rampant, claws extended and teeth

 bared in glass-eyed fury, huge and horrible. The beard of the

 Manticore seemed to rustle with evil life; the eyes seemed to

 see her. The eyes were dark and familiar, glaring at her, staring

 into her, transfixing her until she trembled against the glass,

 hypnotized as a bird is said to be by a snake, poised between

 surrender and fear.

   Fear won, barely. She broke away from the window, ran

 past a vacant store to a narrow door numbered eight at the foot

 of equally narrow stairs. Behind her, as she fled up this flight,

 came a crash of breaking glass, a hideous scream of rage, a

 palpable wave of fury which thrust her before it up the last

 few steps and through the opened door where Mr. Grassi caught

 her, pushed her aside and leaned his whole weight against the

 door. It gave slowly, slowly to close against the sounds below.

   "My dear," he said, panting, "you cut it close, very close.

 Another moment would have been too late."

   She staggered after him as he went to the window where

 he pulled the curtains together to peek through them at the

  

 street below. It was hard to see the street. It boiled with shad-

 ows, ran with flickering. Thicknesses of air transgressed upon

 sight. Things shifted, were there, were not there. Clouds of

 tiny beings came and went, a slightly darker surge in the general

 flow. Striding through it all, pace on pace of its lion feet, tail

 arched high above its giant man-head, came the Manticore,

 scorpion tail lashing as the beast followed its own manic howl

 along the dream-wrapped street.

   "There will be others," whispered Cani Grassi. 'Troops of

 mandrakes, legions of Greasy Girls. The Manticore will lead

 them, and woe to those abroad upon the streets."

  "She said noon!" complained Marianne. "Noon! It was hours

 yet to noon."

   "One of the conditions of this city is that time changes,

 speeds, slows, does what they want it to do. In this case, they

 speeded it. A trap for the unwary."

   "They? They who? Why do they care? Why do they care

 about me? Who am I that they should care?"

   "Oh, Lords of Light," he fretted. "I hoped you knew. Truly?

 Oh, that makes it so much more difficult. I know you are

 someone very important, but I have forgotten just who. Just

 now it seems you are something less than that." He took her

 chapped hands tenderly in his own. "Cleaning lady, is it?"

   "Dishwasher," she replied absently. "What am I doing here?"

   "Ah. Why, you are suffering a malign enchantment. That

 much I am sure of. I thought you might have guessed."

   She collapsed into one of the chairs beside the window,

 staring out blindly at the raging street below. "I hadn't guessed

 anything. Except that it was odd I couldn't remember anything

 before the library."

   "Many people here are like that," he said. "They have for-

 gotten, or been forced to forget. Even I, even I have forgotten

 some things I am sure are very important. Some people can

 remember nothing. Particularly those in the library."

   "So many? And all enchanted?"

   "An accumulation, I believe. Some have been here for a

 very long time. Not only those enchanted by her!"

   "Why? Who is she?"

   Cani Grassi shook his head, tilted it, thrust his tongue out

 at the comer of his mouth. "I kept only a little information

  

 when I came after you, only the tiniest bit, to be sneaked

 through, so as not to attract attention, you understand. Too

 much would have alerted them, her. But a little bit, well,

 Macravail thought it would be safe enough. When he sent me,

 that is. To rescue you, whoever you are."

   She scarcely heard this, for her eyes had been caught by a

 fleeing figure in the street below. "Helen," she cried. "It's

 Helen. I must go let her in...." And she ran toward the door,

 only to be caught in Grassi's arms and held fast, struggling.

   "Not anyone real," he shook her. "Not real. Don't be so

 quick, Marianne. Look out the window. Look!"

   The woman fled toward them; behind her the Manticore

 pursued with a roaring howl of madness, tail flicking steaming

 drops of venom onto the pavement where she ran, her hair

 streaming behind her and her face distorted in fear. As she ran

 past, she dwindled, became two-dimensional as though made

 of paper, a fluttering tissue which then appeared whole once

 more as it ran away from them down the endless street.

   Then the papery figure turned its head, stared over its own

 shoulder, neck folding oddly, pleating upon itself. The figure

 swerved close to the wall across the street, opened its mouth

 to scream once more and collided with the wall to hang there,

 a pasted-up poster figure, mouth forever open, arms forever

 outstretched, dress forever twisted and hiked up by the act of

 running. Marianne heard her own voice crying and found her-

 self held tight against Grassi's shoulder as he patted her back,

 murmuring, "My dear, my dear. Shh. Shhh. They aren't real.

 Not in the way you suppose they are. Shh, now. Shh."

   "It was Helen. Truly Helen."

   "I know. I know," he said. "But you must not give way like

 this. You must watch and learn and understand. Otherwise,

 how are we to rescue you from anything? How are we to send

 word to Macravail? Come now."

   "How are we to rescue me? Gods, Mr. Grassi, how would

 I know? And you don't seem to know any more than I! What

 is this hopeless place we have come to? Why are we here?"

   "My dear pretty lady, do think, do. This is no minor en-

 chantment, no trifling play of an apprentice witch. This is an

 ensorcelment majeur, a chief work! Oh, these false worlds

 cluster about limbo thick as grapes upon a vine, great pendulous

  

 masses of them upon the dry stick of the place we came from.

 Oh, I grow eloquent! Each world a grape, each grape with a

 juice and flavor of its own, individual, unique. Each world

 with its own laws, its own systems. Each a prison with its own

 gate. Each a door with its own lock. So, so, what do we do

 until we know where the gate is? Where the lock is? Ha? We

 sneak, we sly, we peer, we pry-think child, do! We appear

 as nothing, negligible, not worth the notice of the powers of

 this place. So, who comes to help you? Ha? The tiniest spy,

 the weakest servant, the least noticeable familiar. Me. Cani

 Grassi." He turned himself about for her inspection, making a

 pouting face and wiggling his hips. "I brought no baggage,

 carried no sacks full of spells of protection, no witch bags, not

 an amulet even! No, no, in this place we are stronger the weaker

 they think we are."

  Mouth open, she stared at him, disbelieving these tumbled

 words, this babbling nonsense. "Who sent you?" she asked,

 thinking it was a question she should have asked hours ago.

  "Macravail," he replied unhesitatingly. "The arch mage,

 Macravail."

  "And who," she asked, "or what, is he?"

  "A kinsman of yours, I think, pretty one. You do not re-

 member him, but then, you do not remember much. One of

 the laws of this place."

  "Then how do you remember him?"

  "Because I am not suffering a malign enchantment and you

 are. So. Let us think together. You do not know who you are,

 and neither do I. If Macravail did not send that information

 with me, we must believe it is for your protection, or mine,

 or perhaps both. However, I do remember Macravail, and his

 words to me. 'Greendog,' he said, 'send me word where I may

 find you.'"

  "Greendog? What kind of a name is that?"

  "My name," he said doubtfully, "or perhaps what he called

 me at the time. Who knows?" More cheerfully, "Perhaps he

 made a joke. Whatever. We must figure out a way to send him

 word."

  He fell silent for a long time, so long it became uncom-

 fortable and Marianne fidgeted, saying, "What else?"

  He shook his head. "I was thinking there is very little else."

  

   "Didn't this Macravail give you instructions?"

   "To find you, Marianne. 'Find Marianne,' he said. The rest

 he left to my native cunning and natural self-effacement."

   She sighed. It was evident there was no quick, sweet-hot

 solution. There was only tedium and talk, fear and what courage

 one could bring to it. So. If that was the way it was, then that

 was the way it must be.

   "Well, if you have nothing to tell me, I do have something

 to tell you," she said and she told him about the peerers-in,

 the stolen books, the burned book, the visit to the library of

 the woman in black. "I don't know what it all means," she

 confessed, "what it meant when I put the book out the coal

 chute. Do you have any idea?"

   He nodded, nodded, chewing his pursed lips in concentra-

 tion. "Oh, yes, pretty lady. For everyone in this city there is

 a book. There is a book in that place for you, and for me, and

 for Helen, your boss, and for everyone. We are bound to our

 books. And when you put the book outside and it was burned,

 then someone escaped from this city. That is why they cheered.

 But there was only one book, only one. That is why they

 despaired. But listen, there is more.

   "Here in the city, the Manticore. There in the library, books.

 And as the Manticore chases our images onto the walls of the

 city, I think the books grow dim and faded and we grow dim

 and thin and shadowy as well, until they cannot be read any

 longer. What does one do with them then?"

   "With the old, faded books? They are taken to the sub-

 basements and stacked there. Room after room of them. Huge,

 mountainous piles of them."

   He nodded somberly. "And no chance then of escape. Only

 to fall into slow rot, to disappear into dust over an eternity of

 storage." Sadly shaking his head, sighing. "We will not con-

 sider that. No. Before that time is near, we will have found a

 way to send for Macravail, or he will have found a way to us.

 That is why we have our books, of course, yours and mine."

   "We have them?"

   "Surely. You brought them. They are here. Was not your

 own story in the book?"

   "But there were thousands of others, too, more stories than

 I could count...."

  

  "Well. Yes. Most of our books have others' stories in them,

 though we are often unaware of that. It is no matter, pretty

 lady. You have your book and you must read in it again, to

 find what we must do next."

  "My story again?"

  "Is it not your story we seek to unravel? Your story, of

 course."

  So she sat down away from the window in order not to be

 distracted by the recurrent return of the Manticore, by the

 continuing flight of the paper figures, the miragelike wavering

 of the street, to read her own story, beginning with "... She

 found herself walking through a neighborhood where narrow-

 fronted houses stared nearsightedly at her over high stoops and

 scraps of entryway relieved only by tattered yews..." and

 ending with "Is it not your story we seek to unravel? Your

 story, of course." It was all as familiar to her as ten minutes

 ago. Even the picture was of her in her bright scarf, cape around

 her shoulders, clutching the books to her chest as she fled past

 the corner taxidermy shop where the Manticore raged in the

 window. "I shall read it again," she said in a tired voice, "and

 again, and again."

  She did not relish reading the story a dozen times, as she

 had had to do before, but she began without a murmur while

 Grass! brought her bread and cheese and tea. It did not take

 as long this time as she had expected.

  "Here," she said to him. "I think this may be it: "That

 evening there was a tap on the window, and she looked out

 half fearfully to see a black, hunched form against the glass

 and knew it for that persistent follower who had come after

 her from the library. The watcher tapped on the window....

 Almost fearfully she went to the window to see a message

 thrust against the glass. Not all who are here are Manticore

 meat! Will you join us? She wrote upon a napkin the word

 perhaps and held it to the pane. This seemed to satisfy him,

 for he scribbled, I'll come back another time....'"

  "What do you think?" he asked. "A kind of underground,

 perhaps?"

  "Something like that."

  "Against what? Who?"

  She shrugged. "Against whoever runs things, manages the

  

 library, keeps the books. If someone escaped-that's the word

 you used-then it means people are being kept here, impris-

 oned here. And someone is opposed to it, some resistance

 movement."

   "How effective, I wonder?"

   "Who knows? It is at least something. I'll put a note in the

 window of the restaurant when I get back. Helen won't mind

 as long as it isn't conspicuous."

   "And I," he said, doing a little dance step on the carpet,

 twirling and bowing to himself, "I must continue the minuet,

 the slow dance of finding out. Bow, advance, bow, retreat.

 Slow and easy, so they don't catch me."

   "Whoever they are." She laughed, a weary laugh echoed

 from the street where the Manticore raged past as evening fell.

 "Find out who that woman is who came to the library, Mr.

 Grassi. If we find out who she is, it may tell me who I am."

   He shook his head at her, tongue protruding between his

 teeth. "I won't spend time doing that, pretty lady. No. I will

 do what Macravail told me to do-send him a message. He

 will come like the wind, like a storm, if only we can figure

 out how to tell him where we are...."

   "I hope you will be able to do that soon," she comforted

 him, privately thinking that it sounded no less mad than any-

 thing else in the place. "But just in case no one can save us

 from outside, we must try to figure out how to save ourselves."

 When he reached to pat her shoulder, she patted his in return.

 "It's all right. I'll be careful."

   They watched together until the Manticore returned to its

 window and people appeared on the streets once more, few

 and furtive, but moving about nonetheless. Then she left him

 to return to her work, wondering as the wind blew sharp bits

 of cinder into her eyes whether it was truly enchantment or

 dream or a horrible reality from which there would never be

 any escape.

   Makr Avehl had been on the phone for half an hour, speaking

 first to someone calling via satellite, an enigmatic conversation

 which involved much note-taking and short, monosyllabic

 questions. The later calls were to the people he had sent to

 Boston, and when he had finished them all he merely sat where

  

 he was, staring at the carpet between his feet. After twenty

 minutes of this, Ellat cleared her throat to attract his attention.

 They had spent two days in this sitting about. He had not left

 Marianne's apartment even for a moment.

   "What word?" she asked.

   "Harvey Zahmani is not in Boston. No one knows where

 he is. He did not announce his departure, which he usually

 does if he is going on some expedition. Besides, he's supposed

 to be teaching, and he hasn't shown up since last week."

   "So you think-"

   "I think he went after her, after Marianne. Or, probably,

 she drew him into the world to which she has gone. Actually,

 that's much more likely. He would be no more able than I to

 find her, so she must have drawn him in."

   "Why? Fearful of him as she was?"

   "Because when we are in our own dream worlds, we people

 them with others who are important to us, whether we love or

 hate them. Her world would have Harvey in it, because he tied

 himself to her in some way so that she could not or would not

 simply dismiss him."

   "But you are not tied to her? Not with her?"

   "Oh, Ellat. I know it. I wasn't important enough to her,

 though I much longed to be."

   "She liked you."

   "She liked most people. She liked Mrs. Winesap, down-

 stairs, and Mr. Larkin, and the people in the library. But they

 weren't important to her. No. Likely they are not in her world

 either. But I have to find a way to get there, wherever she is."

   "If you go into her world, Makr Avehl, won't it have to be

 in the form which she assigns you? As she sees you or thinks

 of you? Are you prepared for that?"

   The face he turned to her was blank with surprise. He had

 obviously not thought of it, or had thought of it and refused

 to consider it further. He started to shake his head impatiently,

 but she stopped him with a gesture. "No. Makr Avehl. Think.

 I twitted you down at Wanderly, twitted you with lecturing at

 the girl rather than talking with her. If you had talked with her,

 you would not have risked her life as it has been risked. I told

 her that such pontificating was your way, and she said she

 didn't mind, that she found you interesting. So she is good-

  

 natured. We both know that. But you know nothing about her.

 Suppose-oh, take an impossible example-suppose she sees

 you as some monster? If you follow her into her world, it will

 be as that monster. I know that's not possible, but...." Her

 voice trailed away at seeing the expression on his face.

   Makr Avehl was remembering Marianne's hand recoiling

 from his own, her face knitted up in that expression of unwilling

 revulsion. Ellat, seeing him stricken, took his limp hands in

 her own. "Tell me. Did I hit upon an unwelcome truth? Makr

 Avehl, tell me! You need my help."

   "You hit upon something, Sister. Something. I-I offered

 to stay with her Sunday night. I was afraid of her being alone.

 I meant nothing at all improper, nothing lubricious. I thought,

 after all, that she is an American girl, in her twenties, not some

 adolescent daughter of Third World aristocrats who has had

 virginity developed into an art form. I offered to stay with her,

 meaning nothing dishonorable, and she recoiled from me as

 though I had been a serpent. She said something-what was

 it? Something about not being like that, and then she muttered

 under her breath 'begone, burned, buried'-an invocation or

 curse. I was so surprised I could say nothing. I apologized. I

 left her. Zurvan knows how she sees me. If you had not re-

 minded me of that instance, I would have thought she regarded

 me well enough."

   "It might not have been you at all," said Ellat comfortingly.

 "It might have been a conditioned thing, her usual response to

 any thought of intimacy. In which case, since we have met her

 brother, perhaps we can guess? I can guess. You are perhaps

 too nice-minded."

   "Her half brother? Do you mean that she-"

   "I mean that he probably tried something with her when she

 was quite young, and by 'quite young' I mean emotionally, not

 necessarily in years. She is still 'quite young' in many ways.

 It would explain much. It would explain her attitude toward

 your offer to stay with her. You do look like him."

   "What do you mean, 'tried something'? Do you mean to

 tell me that he tried to force her? Or did force her?"

   "Possibly. It would explain many things about her. And,

 since he is the kind of man he is, he probably followed the

 failure or success of his attempt with an equally forceful attempt

  

 to make her feel responsible for it. She is carrying some burden

 regarding him, Makr Avehl, and I wish that Zurvan had prompted

 you to pay attention to her instead of to the impression you

 were making."

   "You're brutal, Ellat."

   "Only occasionally," she said with a fond embrace of his

 shoulders. "Only when I am distressed beyond measure. Now,

 what did the Kavi say?"

  "I asked them to read the Cave for me, as you know. I asked

 for three readings. Cyram did one, Nalavi did one, and the

 third was by that young cousin of Cyram's, the one with the

 scary eyes..."

   "Therat. She doesn't have scary eyes. She's a bit intense."

   "She has eyes like a hawk protecting its nest, ready to tear

 out your gizzard. Oh, God, Ellat, what difference what kind

 of eyes she has? They took the readings. I asked for guidance

 to Marianne. That's all. Aghrehond will be helping all he can,

 concentrating, fishing about and stirring up the waters. Well...."

   "So. The message?"

   "Books and what Cyram describes as 'a paper person.'

 Nalavi saw a building, and a city. The young one-"

   "Therat."

   "Therat saw a manticore. Nothing else; just a manticore."

   "I didn't know there was a manticore in the Cave."

   "Neither did anyone else. It's there. Carved in the seventh

 or eighth century, Cyram thinks, near the floor, half hidden

 behind a stalagmite. The light fell on it clean and clear, Therat

 said, but he didn't believe her until he took a lantern in there

 and looked for it. It wasn't even in the lectionary."

   "Without the lectionary..."

   "Anybody's guess. No history of lessons. No previous ci-

 tations. No precedents. Cyram says that the girl-"

   "Therat," she said patiently.

   "Therat. Cyram says that she feels it means just what it is.

 A manticore. Oh, one more thing. Cyram also saw an onion."

 He laughed without amusement. "Of course, I have a lectionary

 with me and I'll start by looking up the references that are in

 it.""Makr," she said, eyes half shut as she stared at the street

 light glow through the hazy curtains. "Makr. It makes me think

  

 of something. Paper people, and onions. A thing she said.

 What was it? Shhh, now, let me think." And she leaned her

 head in her hands rocking to and fro while the wind moved

 the branches on the curtain, changing their shadow pattern with

 each flicker. "Something she said about peeling away... being

 peeled away... about Harvey doing that to her-peeling her

 away..."

   "Like a snake shedding its skin?" he whispered. "Papery

 skin, peeling away? Like that?"

   "Think," she said in a vague voice. "Of onions, one layer

 inside another, inside another, all the way to the heart of it and

 nothingness. She said Harvey made her feel that way. Flayed.

 Skinned. Perhaps an onion is not a bad symbol for that."

   "Books?" he asked. "Books. A building. A city."

   "Books and a building. She worked in a library, Makr Avehl,

 you told me that yourself. Think! You don't know her well

 enough, that's all. You should have listened to her. You should

 have stopped talking and listened to her."

   He knelt on the floor before her and bowed his head into

 her lap. "Beat me, Ellat. Beat me as you did when I was five

 and tried to drown the white cat. Beat me, but then forgive me

 and help me. I'm a beast, but forgive me."

   She shook her head. "A library, Makr Avehl. People being

 peeled like onions. A manticore. A manticore is a monster.

 That's all. Look in the lectionary, if you like, but it will not

 tell you more than that. To learn more than that, you must look

 at this place and listen to it as you did not listen to her."

   He began to walk around the room, laying his hands on

 the walls, on the windowsills, on the satiny surfaces of the

 refinished furniture, on the shelves, the countertops, the care-

 fully laid tile. He began to breathe in the scent of the place,

 to inhale it, the mixture of lemon oil and potpourri and the

 fragile smell of Marianne herself, faintly spicy, faintly musky.

 He began to see the colors, each on each and together, until

 he knew her thought and intention as she had put each thing

 in its place, each brushstroke on each surface. He felt the texture

 of the fabric on the chairs, the dry whiskery push of it into his

 palm, like a cat's face. He turned on the lamp, noticed the way

 the light lay on the wood, on the paint, on the fabric. "She lay

 on the bed in there," he whispered. "She saw it just like this,

  

 this corner." He went into the bedroom, lay down on the bed,

 turned until he saw it as he knew she had seen it, the blanket

 warm and soft beneath his cheek. Under the lamplight the happy

 frog he had brought her glowed quietly.

  What kind of world would one like this carry in her soul?

 What would its geography be, its climate and culture? He lay

 quietly, letting what he knew of her possess him until it became

 more real than himself. Where? Where? Where?

   Ellat came to the door of the room. "Makr Avehl. Remem-

 ber, in her world you may not have a form or presence which

 will please you. Remember, it may not be of her own doing.

 It may be merely something old and wounding which will not

 let her see you as you are."

  "I know, Ellat," he said. "If anyone can be prepared, I am

 prepared. Wait here for me."

   "Oh, my dear," she said. "Of course I will wait for you."

  

 "WHO AM I when I don't know who I am?" She was leaning

 across a table, trying to post her inconspicuous notice in the

 corner of the coffee shop window, speaking partly to herself.

 Helen was behind the counter, wiping it with a moist cloth and

 humming around the toothpick between her teeth. She inter-

 rupted the hum to make a short, interrogative snort and put her

 hands on her hips. Marianne got the notice propped to her

 satisfaction. It said, "I wish to meet with those who said they

 would return.""

   Helen thought this over. "Who are you? You're whoever

 you were, except you don't remember it."

   "Then I can't be who I was. Memories are part of who a

 person is, and I don't have any. Right now, I remember the

 library and getting out of it. That's almost all I am. There's no

 one here to tell me whether I was good, or bad, or really evil.

 I don't know whether I helped people or hurt them."

   "You're pretty young to have done very much of either."

   "I'm old enough to have started. I don't know whether

 people loved me or hated me. Or-not really. Except that

  

 someone hated me enough to get rid of me."

   Privately, Marianne felt that the answer to this question was

 not as important as some superficial and conventional attitudes

 made it seem. In this sunless place, with its walled horizon

 and enclosed universe, there was still regard among the inhab-

 itants for a kind of wary politeness, a conventional courtesy.

 There was an accepted discrimination between good and evil,

 based largely upon the Manticore as a defining limit of the one

 and opposition to him as the expression of the other. In this

 place, Marianne was good because she opposed evil. What she

 might have been elsewhere, what sins she might have com-

 mitted, could only be pale and irrelevant in this world, and it

 was only a traditional concern which made her voice the ques-

 tion-and of what tradition she would have been hard pressed

 to say.

   "Someone else cares enough about you to try and come after

 you. You told me about the fellow, the one with the books."

   "And that tells me that I wasn't completely... you know,

 neutral. I didn't think I was neutral, anyhow. I don't look like

 a neutral person, do I, Helen?"

   Helen shook her head, almost smiling. Since Marianne had

 told her about Cani Grassi and her narrow escape from the

 Manticore, Helen seemed a little more trusting, more personal,

 less shut up within herself. "You don't look neutral, girl. You

 look exactly like some of the people in the place I come from.

 You could be a cousin to them."

   "Where was that?"

   "I lived in Alphenlicht. Ever heard of it?"

   Marianne felt a tingle, a tiny shock running from ear to ear

 across the top of her head, a kind of sparkling behind the eyes,

 which came for an instant and was gone.

   "It's a tiny, old country," Helen went on. "Squeezed in at

 the comer of some bigger, more important countries, mountains

 all around. A little backward, I guess you'd say. We had a

 schoolteacher used to say that. 'A little backward in a nice

 way,' she'd say. Lots of horses on the farms and little wagons

 in the streets. Only a few cars, and those only to take the high-

 ups away when they needed to fly somewhere or buy something

 we didn't have. A slow little country, slow and peaceful. Never

 was any war in Alphenlicht as long as anyone could remember.

  

 Some said we were too little. Others said it was because of the

 Cave of Light."

   "The Cave of Light?" A tingle, wanning, warning.

   "In the Holy Mountain, right in the middle of the country.

 See, there was this mountain, like a big sponge, all full of

 holes and tunnels, little ones and big ones, and all the holes

 lined with this shiny glass-rock, what do you call it? Eisen-

 what?"

   "Isinglass? You mean mica?"

   "That stuff. Yes. Well, all these holes go down into the

 mountain into a cave there. A big cave. Round like a melon.

 Flat floor. Pillars of stone and all these little holes reflecting

 light down into it. Well, back when the Kavi first came .to

 Alphenlicht, they began to make carvings and drawings in the

 cave. After a few hundred years, the whole cave was covered

 with carvings, all over the inside."

   "What kind of carvings? People? Gods? What?"

   "Everything. Trees, animals, flowers, people, books,

 words-everything you can imagine and a few you can't. So,

 people had noticed that the light comes down through the moun-

 tain, down all those funny shiny tubes and holes, and falls on

 some of the carvings. Not much to that, hmm? Well, somebody

 had noticed that the light never seemed to fall the same way

 twice. Say you go in there today at sunrise, and the light falls

 one place on the carving of a tree and another place on an old

 man eating a rabbit. Then somebody else comes in midmorning,

 and the light falls on a picture of a boat and the word sthran-

 dunas. And at noon something else, and midafternoon some-

 thing else, and tomorrow morning something else again."

   "But it would have to be the same sometimes. Say, every

 14th of June at six a.m."

   "It isn't," said Helen triumphantly. "They kept records, and

 it isn't. Never the same way twice. They finally figured out it

 was because of the way the trees grow on the mountain, or the

 deer graze, or the hunters move, or whatever. No two people

 ever see the light the same. No one person ever sees it the

 same twice. Just like fingerprints, all different...."

   "Well, then it didn't take long for people to decide it was

 like a kind of oracle. You have a problem, you go into the

 Cave and see where the light falls, and that makes a message

  

 for you. If you can't figure it out, then there are Kavi there

 who figure it out for you. They even have a book telling what

 all the signs and carvings mean."

   "Like an oracle," mused Marianne, "the oracle of Delphi,"

 not realizing she had no idea what "Delphi" meant.

   "Some call it that," said Helen. "Some call it the oracle

 cave. There are those who say that's why we never had a war,

 because the Cave showed us how to keep our borders closed.

 There must have been something to that, coo, come to think

 of it." She fell silent, thinking.

   "Why was that, Helen?"

   "Oh, it was something my husband, David, said once about

 people from the neighboring country trying to get in. He was

 a border guard, my David, when he was younger."

   "Tell me about him, about you. How did you get here?"

   The large woman stared out the window, ticking the tooth-

 pick between her teeth, a little tapping, like woodbeetle or

 some kind of infinitesimal code transmission. For a time Mari-

 anne thought she would not answer, but at last she said, "Well,

 why not?

   "We lived near the Prime Minister's house, not his town

 house, you know, for when the Council met, but his country

 house, the Residence. David kept the grounds at the place, him

 and two or three young fellows and a couple of women in the

 kitchen garden. Didn't like the insides of places, David didn't.

 Liked the sun in his face and getting his hands dirty. Well, we

 got along well enough. Never had any children, which was sad

 for us, but otherwise it was a good life. Come one spring,

 David was doing some cutting along the drive, and around

 noon I took him his lunch. I remember walking down the road.

 There were birds singing, and the grass was smelling the way

 it does, fresh. The house was shining up on its hill, walls all

 silver rose in the sun. Well, I saw this big, black car come

 down the hill from the Residence, raising up dust, and I knew

 it was her."

   Silence stretched, Helen's eyes fixed on something distant

 in time and place, voice fallen into a murmur. Marianne waited

 for a time, then nudged into the quiet. "Who was she, Helen?"

   "Ah. Who? Oh, her. Well, she was some nobility or other.

 From Lubovosk. It was a country over the mountain used to

  

 be part of us but separated off a long time ago. That's the only

 time we ever talked war in Alphenlicht, when Lubovosk was

 mentioned. Our teacher called it a place of some unkindness,

 I remember. This woman was there, come to try and marry

 herself off to our Prime Minister. We called her the Black

 Countess because she always wore black, and she had this

 nephew came with her. We called him Prince Teeth because

 he was always behind her with his teeth showing like a dog

 about to bite, pretty much of an age with her, too....

   "Well, this car comes down the hill and into the woods. I

 heard it coming, the roar of it along the road like some animal

 growling among the trees. Then it stopped. I came round a

 corner and saw David had a little tree down across the road

 where he'd cut it. He was bowing and tugging his hat brim

 and saying he'd have it out of the way in a moment, real polite.

 He was always polite, David...."

   "Yes," whispered Marianne. "What happened?"

   "Well, she came out from that car, Prince Teeth right behind

 her, eyes glittering like a wolf in torchlight, and she pointed a

 finger at David, one hand pointing and the other hand up in

 the air twisting and twisting like somebody opening a great

 spigot of something, and she cries, 'Who delays me, I delay.

 Who holds me, I hold forever. Fool, begone!' Suddenly, Da-

 vid's gone, there's nothing there, and I scream, and she turns

 on me with that hand still out and the other twisting and twist-

 ing, and she smiles-oh, it was a cruel smile-and says, 'And

 you to some other place, slut?' Well, I was quiet. I fell down

 with my face in the dirt and I was quiet. I heard the car go on

 its way, out to the main road and away north. It was her saying

 'some other place' made me quiet. Wherever David went, that's

 where I would go to find him, not some other place."

   "Find him? Where? How?"

   "Come nightfall, I went up to the house and asked to see

 the Prime Minister, Archmage Makr Avehl. All the people in

 the house were relatives of mine. They let me in to see him."

   "Macravail! I know that name. Card Grassi told me that

 name!"

   "Ah. Well, then, maybe you're another she's sent here. Like

 my David. Not a follower, like me."

  

   "I don't understand what you mean, follower?"

   "I told the Archmage what had happened. Hard-faced he

 was, sitting there by the fire, and I knew that woman from

 Lubovosk had made him terribly angry. I told him what had

 happened, what David did and said, what she did, and the

 motions she made and the things she said, and he told me he

 couldn't get David out without risking the land and all its

 people, but he could send me in after him, into the false worlds.

 And if I found David, I could be strong with him until the time

 Makr Avehl could get us all out. So I followed David in here."

   "How long? How long has it been?"

   "How can you measure how long? Long enough for me to

 take over this place, long enough to find David, long enough

 for the two of us to know there aren't any trees here, aren't

 any mountains, to know there's only this city and the Manticore.

 The damned Manticore."

   "So you did find him?"

   "Oh, yes. I found him. For all the good that was." She fell

 silent for a long time, chewing her lips, wiping the counter in

 an endless circle. "He didn't know me, you see. Didn't re-

 member me. Wasn't interested. That's one thing about this

 place, you know. There's no love here. No desire. Everything

 muted and put down of that kind. I've thought about it many

 a night, lying in my room, knowing he was just down the hall

 in another room, not caring. Not that I care either, much, but

 1 can remember caring. He can't even remember that."

   Marianne was instantly uncomfortable with this line of

 thought. She did not want to think of caring, not in the way

 Helen meant it, though she knew well enough what Helen

 meant. Caring was like trees and mountains, something she

 knew of, had known of, which did not exist in this world even

 though she believed that somewhere such things existed. She

 changed the subject. "What does David do?"

   "He plots, girl. He plots and sneaks about. Ever since I told

 him about her, he follows her whenever she comes here. Oh,

 she comes here, in that same long, black car. I've seen her

 going into the library."

   "Madame Delubovoska? Her?"

   Helen put a finger to her lips, shook her head in a tiny

  

 tremor, side to side, the gesture saying be still about it, silly

 girl, don't say names. "When he isn't following her, he's plot-

 ting to kill the Manticore."

   "Helen, will you come with me when I go to see my friend

 next time? The one who lives on Manticore Street?"

   Helen shuddered. "I'd as soon not. Better stay as far from

 the Manticore as possible."

   "I was there. It didn't hurt me."

   "You stay here long enough, you'll see yourself out there

 being chased by the Manticore. Pictures of you. Flickery things

 that look just like you. Like your skin peeled off you, layer

 on layer, your skin and your soul. I've seen them, big paper

 cut-outs of me, running and screaming and running, and ending

 up stuck up on the walls of the city, everywhere. After a while,

 every place you look, there you are, stuck to the walls, bits

 and shreds of you peeled away to hold up the walls as though

 the walls were made of people. I can feel it at night, feel the

 skin coming off me in the dark, tiny bit by tiny bit, around me

 like a shroud, then floating off to hang in the shadows until

 the Manticore walks. And we see ourselves running and

 screaming, and that reminds us to be afraid again."

   Marianne did not reply, but she carried the thought with her

 through the day. "Is that all any of us are?" she wondered.

 "Part of the fabric of whatever place we are in, whatever time

 we are in, a brick, a stone, a carved piece at the top of some

 pedestal? Is it we or the place which has urgency and impor-

 tance? And if it is the place which has importance, why do we

 resist it so? Running and screaming and hating the bits of us

 which are blown about and lost upon the walls of the world?

 Are we dwindled thereby?" Helen did not look dwindled, but

 she had an air of having retreated to some last redoubt within

 herself from which she peered out upon the world, weary but

 indomitable.

   At noon, which was simply midway through the lighted

 period in this sunless place, Marianne felt someone watching

 her, turned from her pan washing to find a dark, bulky man

 staring from a corner table through the kitchen hatch at her and

 knew at once that this was one of the peerers who had made

 her life so miserable when she had been in the library. She

  

 went back to her work with the uneasy feeling that his eyes

 remained fixed upon her.

   Helen whispered, "Marianne, that man watching you is my

 David. It must be because of that note in the window." Then

 she went back to ladling stew and buttering bread, watching

 the man with such ill-concealed longing that Marianne felt guilt

 for having brought him there. He was a big man, with a strong

 face and gray-streaked moustache, and his face was full of

 angry purpose.

   When he had finished his meal, he came by the hatch and

 dropped a folded piece of paper through it. Marianne put the

 paper to one side and kept on with the washing. She had wanted

 this contact, had planned for it, and yet was now uncertain that

 she could deal with this man's needs and purposes, possibly

 very different from her own. It was only after the customers

 had gone and the two of them had the place to themselves that

 she dried her hands and unfolded the paper, reading it before

 she handed it to Helen, who had not tried to disguise her

 interest.

   If you want to join us, come-to the church tonight, when

 the bells ring.

   Marianne regarded this thoughtfully. The dolorous ringing

 of the bells did not normally begin until late, after most cus-

 tomers had left the restaurant, sometimes not until after Helen

 herself had gone, after the evening rain had fallen, at the time

 the Greasy Girls were parading and others avoided the walks.

   "You don't mind?" she said. "I really want to find out...."

   Helen shrugged. "I'll come with you. We'll both find out."

   They closed the restaurant and went down the busy street

 while there was still light in the sky, guiding themselves by the

 signal tower. There was in the center of the town a tower, tall

 only in relationship to the squatty buildings which surrounded

 it, for it had no graceful height to commend it as a building of

 interest or aesthetic value. It was simply slightly taller than

 other buildings, and if one scanned the circumference of the

 city, one might become aware that it was the highest point

 within that place, not by much, but by the smallest increment

 which would allow it to surmount all other roofs. The conical

 roof of this tower was tiled in red so that it appeared as an

  

 inflamed carbuncle upon the horizon of the city. The place was

 called by everyone throughout the city the signal tower. Who

 signaled from it, or when, or for what purpose was never

 mentioned. The church crouched near it, half in its shadow.

   They hid themselves behind the thick pillars of the church

 porch to await the coming of darkness. While it was still dusk,

 the Greasy Girls began to come out of their houses, heads

 shaved clean, bodies almost naked, all skin surfaces annointed

 with some ointment which made them shine in the shadows

 like slime-wet frogs. A few started walking down the street,

 were joined by others, then still others, no sound accompanying

 them but the shuffle of their feet. When some fifty of (hem

 had assembled, they marched up the church steps and into the

 building. Helen and Marianne slipped around the corner of the

 porch to avoid them, and entered the church from an unlit side

 door. They were oppressed by an unfamiliar smell which aroused

 a kind of quasi-memory which both of them felt they should

 be able to identify. The music oozing from the place was deadly

 solemn, almost lugubrious, and the congregation bathed in this

 watery sound with expressions of drowned lassitude. Other than

 the Greasy Girls there were only a dozen or so people scattered

 individually among the massive stone benches. David gestured

 to them from behind a pillar, and they came to sit in front of

 him while the sad music went on and on and the hierarch sat

 drowsing in his high chair on the podium. David leaned forward

 as though to say something just as the music trailed away into

 inconsequent stillness and the hierarch began to speak.

   "Tomorrow we will walk with the Manticore once more.

 Rejoice to walk with the Manticore, for it is the Manticore who

 saves us from the horrible librarians. In that dread library our

 books are kept, and we know that others may read our lives,

 take us into their power.... If it were not for the Manticore,

 we would have no future except to live upon those shelves

 forever. But the Manticore peels us away, layer by layer, places

 us upon the walls of the city where we may become part of

 the city itself, strong as its walls, eternal as its stones. As we

 are peeled away by the Manticore, our books dim and fade,

 and we pass out of the power of the librarians and into the

 light. Oh, rejoice to walk with the Manticore-rejoice and

 sing."

  

  The singing began again, awful music, deep as an ocean

 and as black, lightless as the terrible depths of the sea. A curtain

 at the back of the podium swayed briefly in some errant gust

 of air, and Marianne caught a glimpse of the singers behind it,

 women, naked and oiled, shaved and shining, singing in hard,

 hornlike voices with only their flabby dugs testifying to fe-

 maleness.

  David whispered, "Follow me when we go out," which after

 a time they did, waiting until the procession of Greasy Girls

 had departed and then trailing him as he led them down dark

 side streets and into an area of high, blank-faced warehouses

 with railway sidings where little red lights gleamed like hungry

 eyes and a floodlamp blared threat against a wall alive with

 hunted figures, swarming with fearful faces and pleading hands.

 He took them into an alleyway, through a hidden door at the

 base of some black, featureless building. They heard voices

 before they came into the room, a room which reminded Mari-

 anne of the sub-basement rooms of the library, half full of

 discarded junk, the other half-filled by the dozen people sitting

 around an old table. Marianne had only a moment to hear the

 voices before she was grabbed by harsh hands and thrust vi-

 olently against a wall.

   "I took them to church," David said to the assembly. "There's

 just the two of them. Nobody followed them. This one is Helen.

 She says she was married to me once. The other one is the one

 from the library."

   "Let go of me," Marianne snarled, almost weeping. "I am

 not from the library. My name is Marianne, and I'm not from

 the library." Two of the conspirators had risen to take Helen's

 arms, keeping her from interfering. Helen wrestled with them

 angrily, but they held her fast.

  "Is that so?" asked a white-haired man with a beard down

 to his belly, wild eyes under tufts of spiky brows staring at her.

 "We know that no one comes from there. And yet there are

 always people there, and you are the only one who has ever

 escaped."

  "Don't be silly," she hissed. "People left there every night."

 A hard, leaden anger was forming inside her, spinning like a

 flywheel.

  "Really? Did you have the impression that others of the

  

 library staff left there at night?"

   "They went home at night," she said. "Of course they did."

   "Ah. You say they went home at night. Those of us outside

 never saw anyone leave, did you knew that?"

   "But I was always alone at night. Absolutely alone!"

   "And yet no one left. Believe me, that is true. Though, to

 lend credence to what you say, it is also true that you were the

 only one we could see at night, though we could see others

 from time to time in the day. Interesting. Did you know that

 since you have come, the Manticore walks more frequently

 than before?"

   "I-I didn't know. I'm sure it has nothing to do with me...."

 As she said this, she knew it was not true, and the heavy who

 within spun a little faster.

   "That is unlikely. Before you came to the library, the Man-

 ticore walked one day in ten....

   "One day in ten. We considered it a kind of measure of the

 malignity of the place, not decently hidden under a cloak of

 sickness or a robe of age, but ourselves, peeling away layer

 by layer, visible on every side, confronted at every turning,

 our own eyes peering at us from the walls, our own mouths

 pleading with us, our own arms flung out to evoke our pity.

 What was malign about the city, we thought, is that the Man-

 ticore walked one day in ten, a beastly decimator, herding

 before him our own mortality.

   "Well, there are those-in this room-who will not bear

 it, who will trap the Manticore and kill him rather than be torn

 off in this fashion, sheet by sheet, as a calendar is torn. We

 had begun to make plans....

   "But since you have come, the Manticore walks more often.

 He walks one day in seven, one day in five. Soon, perhaps,

 every day?"

   "Are you asking me?" Her voice trembled with threat.

   "No. I am telling you. Explaining why we sought you out.

 Since you came, the fury of the place is doubled, and we

 demand to know why."

   "We will know why," shrilled a tall, cloud-haired woman

 who struck the table with her fist, raising a cloud of dust. "We

 will know why. We saw you outside the Manticore's window.

  

 We saw you looking at it long, eye to eye. We believe you

 know the Manticore! We believe you know who, or what, he

 is, and how he may be conquered. We believe you are some

 kin of his!"

   Within her the wheel sped once again, making a hum which

 filled her blood, set it singing. "How would I know the Man-

 ticore's name? Why would it be kin of mine?"

   They looked uncertainly at one another, confused by her

 tone. Though they held her against the wall, she blazed at them

 from among their constraining arms. They could only repeat

 themselves.

   "We believe you know the Manticore, know what it is, who

 it is. How, or why, or when-those are not important questions.

 You looked at the Manticore as though you recognized him,

 as though you knew his name."

   "I do not know its name. I don't know anything about this

 place. I have no memory of what I was before. If you are doing

 something to get away, I will help you or go with you, but if

 you go on asking me questions like this, I can't help you."

 She felt hot, a^-ry tears, swallowed them, let herself snarl.

 "Why am I here? Why are you here?"

   The white-bearded one nodded, almost in satisfaction. "You

 have seen the Greasy Girls. They walk where the Manticore

 walks. Bald, shaven, naked, lean as leather, oiled to a brighter

 gloss than finished marble, walking and chanting before the

 Manticore, worshiping the Manticore. The Manticore laughs

 at them, kills one occasionally, lets them march and posture

 as they will. We are their antithesis. We will not accept, will

 not resign ourselves, will not permit, will not believe. We will

 resist! We will find a way to get into the library and bum it.

 We will find a way to kill the Manticore. We will find a way

 out of here.

   "And we will make you help us, one way or another. We

 don't believe you when you tell us you do not know the Man-

 ticore-though you may not realize that you lie to us. Still,

 this is enough for tonight. Tomorrow, the Manticore walks.

 Soon after that, we will meet again." They let go of her and

 turned away, and Helen took her arm, perhaps in comfort,

 perhaps for comfort.

  

   David took them out of the place, the silence behind them

 breaking into confused expostulation as they went through the

 door into the night. Helen angrily rubbed her arms where she

 had been held. "Damn it, David," she snarled. "That was a

 rotten thing to do."

   He nibbed his wrist across his moustache, face as hard and

 determined as it had been since they had seen him at noon. "If

 we were once married, woman, if we were, then you would

 forgive me, knowing that what I do is necessary. If we were

 not, then it is of no concern of mine what you think of me.

 You may have resigned yourself to this place. I have not. What

 the Leader said is true. We will kill the Manticore or die, but

 we will not merely live here to see our souls pasted upon the

 walls of this place...."

   He left them with that, with no farewell, without a wave of

 hand or a gesture, and Helen began to cry silently, tears running

 down her strong face without a sound. "We're going to Mr.

 Grassi's place," Marianne said. "He has a book I have to use."

   Helen, busy wiping her eyes, did not answer, but neither

 did she object. Though it took them some time to find where

 they were and determine in which direction Manticore Street

 would be found, Helen said nothing in all that time.

   In the second floor apartment, Mr. Grassi was unsurprised

 at their arrival. Marianne went directly to the shelf where her

 book, To Hold Forever, was found.

   "Oh, my dear pretty lady," said Grassi. "Are you looking

 for more answers to other questions yet?"

   "One question only," she said briefly. "Which we should

 have asked when I was here last, Mr. Grassi. We should not

 have waited, should not have delayed. We should have asked

 the book then how to send the message you wondered about.

 How do we call for help, Mr. Grassi? We must know, for this

 last day has convinced me we must have help or be here for-

 ever."

   She let Helen tell him what had occurred as she sat down

 with the heavy book in her lap. Marianne paid no attention.

 She had begun to read at the place in the story which began

 with Grassi's question, "What do you think? A kind of under-

 ground, perhaps?" and went on through that day and the day

  

 following to the present time. She read broodingly, with deep

 attention, undistracted by the movements about her or the smell

 of the food they were preparing. Outside the windows darkness

 rested upon the city and only the sound of mysterious cars

 moving through distant streets came through the window. She

 read and read, finally placing her hand upon the page and

 reading aloud.

   ""They closed the restaurant and went down the busy street

 while there was still light in the sky, guiding themselves by the

 signal tower. There was in the center of the town a tower....

 It was simply slightly taller than the things around it, and if

 one scanned the circumference of the city, one might become

 aware that it was the highest point within that place.... The

 conical roof of this tower was tiled in red so that it appeared

 as an inflamed carbuncle upon the horizon of the city. The

 place was called by everyone throughout the city the signal

 tower. Who signaled from it, or when, or for what purpose

 was never mentioned.'"

   She thumped the book with her hand. "There is a signal

 tower, Mr. Grass!. A place to signal from or why else is it

 called by that name? So, let us signal from it."

   "My dear ladies-now? In the dark? When dawn may come

 at any time and with it the Manticore? Oh, surely another time,

 a better time...."

   The wheel within her hummed, a rising pitch of fury. "Mr.

 Grassi. You are fluttering, and it is unlike you. Think of your

 native cunning. Think of your natural guile. Think how clever

 we are, Mr. Grassi, and let us go. Who knows what another

 day in this place may do to us? I will not wait to be used by

 those plotters; I will not wait to be eaten by Madame; I will

 not wait to be pursued by the Manticore. Stay or go with us,

 Mr. Grassi, but we will go, won't we Helen?"

   The woman nodded over her pot of broth, trying to straighten

 the kitcheny clutter with one hand even as she reached for her

 coat with the other.

   "Oh, leave it," said Grassi, impatiently. "Leave it. Who

 knows. We may never see it again."

   They went out into the silent streets, still wet from the dusk

 rain, lit by an occasional lamp into uncertain pools of visibility

  

 which they swam between in the wet light, working their way

 back toward the church from which their evening's peregri-

 nations had begun.

   "I hear feet behind us," said Helen, almost whispering.

 "Following us."

   "Probably David," said Marianne in a definite tone. "Or

 one of the others. Pay no attention, Helen. Of course they will

 follow us. Let them. Anyone who helps us helps them, though

 they may not know it."

   "I hear cars moving."

   "They always move at night," said Marianne. "When I was

 in the library, I used to listen to them at night, wondering where

 they came from, where they were going. I have never seen

 them in the daytime at all, but at night they come out after the

 rain, to make that wet, swishing sound throughout the night.

 Perhaps the rain brings them, like frogs. Perhaps they bring

 the rain and cannot move when the streets are dry. Pay no

 attention."

   "There are bells ringing."

   "They are ringing the bells in the church. Sometimes they

 do that at night. Whoever does it makes a very soft sound,

 though, not clamorous as in the day. Pay no attention, Helen.

 It will help guide us where we are going."

   And, indeed, the soft ringing of the bells did guide them

 through the wet streets while behind them in the city the sounds

 of cars and footsteps increased as though a skulking assembly

 gathered elsewhere and increased with each moment. They

 came at last to the church, passed before its bulbous pillars,

 and stood at the foot of the signal tower. In the church there

 was singing, sad as tears; the sound lapped them in anguished

 waves where they stood.

   "I know," said Helen. "I will pay no attention to it."

   Marianne smiled. Had she seen it, Helen would have been

 surprised at the cold efficiency of that smile.

   The stairs wound up the outside of the tower for at least

 half its height then entered through an arched opening into a

 lightless interior. From where they stood the heavy tower roof

 lowered down at them like brows over the shadowed eye holes

 of the high arcade. Marianne set her foot upon the step and

 the singing behind her grew in intensity even as the bells began

  

 ringing more loudly. Resolutely, she ignored this and went on,

 Helen and Mr. Grassi behind her, the sound growing moment

 by moment into a cacophony, a tumult, the swishing of the

 cars and the tread of many feet underlaying other sounds with

 a constant susurrus as they climbed. Far away she thought she

 heard the crash of breaking glass and she turned to see the

 expression of surprise and fear on both faces behind her. "We

 would probably not be able to hear the Manticore's window

 breaking from here," she said. "Pay no attention."

   They were not long in doubt, for the next sound they heard

 was the unmistakable roar of the Manticore, far off yet infinitely

 ominous. They hurried up the steps, curling around the squatty

 tower once, twice, three times widdershins. Before them the

 arched opening into darkness gaped like a mouth, and they

 stopped as if by common consent before entering it. Below

 them 011 the street, things gathered, vision swam, and a file of

 Greasy Girls began to assemble at the corner. There were bulky

 shadows at the base of the tower, and Marianne saw one or

 two of them start up the tower stair. "David is there," she told

 Helen. "With others. It seems we are together in this, whether

 or no."

   They hesitated at the dark opening. There was no door, no

 sign that there had ever been a door, and yet the impression

 of a definite barrier within that opening was clear to each of

 them. "Shall we risk what waits within?" asked Marianne. "Or

 do you think we only imagine it?"

   "Something there," said Helen.

   Grassi nodded, put out a hand to feel of the darkness as

 though he measured velvet for a robe. "Yes," he said, "some-

 thing there, and yet I do not think it menaces us."

   "Then we gain nothing by standing," said Marianne, push-

 ing her way through the opening and into the tower. There was

 no light inside, and they fumbled their way around the stone

 walls until they encountered the stairs once more and could

 fumble their way up that twisting, railless flight. Gradually

 their eyes became used to the darkness, became accustomed

 to the velvet shadow, and they saw draperies as of mist against

 the dark. Faces of smoke. Hands which reached foggy fingers

 toward them. Voices of vapor. Marianne stopped climbing, sat

 down with her back against the wall and her hands held before

  

 her to warn away whatever it was which shifted and swam at

 the edges of her sight.

   "Ghosts...." whispered Helen.

   "Peeled ones," corrected Grassi in an awed tone. "Those

 whom the Manticore has chased to the edges of oblivion."

   A sigh ran among the shifting shapes. Marianne could see

 them more clearly now, forms of virtual transparency through

 which one might see the ghostly hearts beating slowly, the

 pulsing blood coursing through pale veins, translucent orbs of

 eyes staring at them through the darkness. Even as she watched,

 one of the figures threw up its gray arms and opened its mouth

 in a long, silent scream which echoed down the tower in a

 single pulse of agony, then came apart into shreds before her

 eyes, fading into the gloom, into nothingness. Around this

 disappeared one was an agitation of ghosts, a turmoil of spirits

 and a soundless wailing which bit at them like the shriek of

 unoiled hinges on old vaults.

   The anger within Marianne deepened, began to sing. "There

 is nothing we can do for them," she said to the others, beginning

 to climb once more. "We save them if we save ourselves.

 Otherwise, there is nothing for them or for us. Come, quickly.

 The Manticore is hunting through the streets."

   Though the tower had not looked very tall from the street,

 from within it seemed to extend endlessly upward, and they

 turned around and around as they climbed, still widdershins,

 the world beginning to spin beneath them. At last they reached

 a flat platform and felt a ladder upon the wall. At the top of

 the ladder was a trapdoor, and it opened at their combined

 strength to let them out into the room at the top of the tower.

 The room was strewn with rubbish, with broken picture frames

 and trash and blown leaves from trees which had never existed

 in this place. In the center of the room was a fireplace without

 a chimney, simply a raised platform made up of large stones

 cemented together. Marianne did not wait. She began scav-

 enging immediately among the broken frames, stripping a can-

 vas away from its frame and piling the broken sticks upon the

 hearth. The picture had been of a naked girl carrying a light

 in a dark, frightening street.

   "I pray," she begged them, "that one of you has a match.

 Without it, I fear we're done."

  

  "Always," said Helen, rummaging in her pockets. "One

 must never be without fire...."

  Below them in the nearby street the roar of the Manticore

 became one with a roar from the crowd. Marianne heard a

 trumpet bray, somewhere, or a car horn, as she fidgeted while

 Helen searched. At last the woman found what she had looked

 for, half a dozen wooden matches, two of them broken. They

 crouched beside her, cutting off the wind, while she tried to

 light the broken frame with a kindling of dead leaves and scraps

 of paper. The first four matches went out, caught by vagrant

 wind, burned out without igniting anything but themselves.

 Marianne gulped, wiped her hands, let frustrated fury take her.

 "Burn," she commanded. "You will bum to summon help,

 because I need help. Burn." Still, there was only one match

 left when the leaves caught fire to send tentative tendrils of

 flame up between the bits of broken wood. Then the wood

 caught with a roar, the paint upon it bubbling and pouring out

 smoke. They found other trash in the place, heaped it upon the

 small fire until it became a beacon of leaping red and a column

 of black, roiling smoke rising upward forever from the tower.

   "Now," gasped Marianne, "should we call a name? Invoke

 a spirit? Call upon God?"

   "Call upon Macravail," cried Grassi. "For if he hears you,

 he will bring God with him."

  

 THE DUSK RAIN wakened Chimera, sogging the rough curls of

 his mane and running across Lion's closed eyes into the comers

 of the nostrils, making Lion sneeze. There was no sound to

 have awakened him, and he swiveled ears, trying to determine

 what quality of uneasiness it might have been which put an

 end to dream and brought him into this place. He rather thought

 it had been the sound of someone calling his name, but he

 could detect no echo of that summons now. He turned his heavy

 head, following the absence of sound, ears continuing to prick

 and twitch. This motion wakened Goat who shared the ears

 with Lion, centered as they were in the great arc of Goat's

 horns. Through slitted eyes Goat stared calmly along the shaggy

 hair of the backbone to the end of his back where the flat,

 scaled head of Snake rested-still asleep, forked tongue flick-

 ering unconsciously-and Snake's body curved away into Chi-

 mera's tail. Lion began pawing wetness away, and Goat caught

 a glimpse of the dark wall which towered just behind them,

 arcing off into haze in either direction.

   "Where are I," he mused in his throaty baah. "We? Where?"

   "Outside something," rumbled Lion, washing the last of the

  

 dusk rain from the deep wrinkles between his eyes. His head

 swiveled as he heard an ominous rattle from behind him, and

 he looked into the eyes of Snake, awake now, tail in sinuous

 motion with its tip a vibrating blur. "We should be inside it

 rather than outside it. I don't like being outside."

   Goat turned to regard the wall, forcing Lion to look in the

 opposite direction. Two of the Chimera's faces were back to

 back, able to turn completely around, as an owl's head does,

 which allowed Lion to look forward while Goat looked back

 or vice versa on occasion. Lion contested the movement, turn-

 ing the neck violently as he coughed with a guttural roar, and

 Goat stared down his own hairy backbone once more at Snake's

 head, now thoroughly awake, tongue flicking in and out as it

 tasted the air.

   "Why are we here?" Goat asked, refusing to be annoyed by

 Lion's forceful behavior. "Why?"

   "Sssummoned, no doubt," hissed Snake. "Ssseeking sssome-

 one. It would be better to ssstop all thisss ssseeking, all this

 waking in ssstrange locationsss." The rattle at the end of Snake's

 tail gave a dry, uneasy buzz, a humming paranoia of sound

 that made Goat blink and Lion extend his claws to scar the

 ground.

   "Who is it we are seeking?" asked Goat, almost as though

 he knew the answer already but was testing to see whether the

 other parts of himself were as aware as he.

   "Marianne," roared Lion lustfully. "We are seeking Mari-

 anne."

   "Sssilly girlsss," Snake hissed. "Running away and asssking

 to be ressscued."

   "She didn't run away," Goat reminded him. "She was sent,

 Snake." The Chimera got to its feet, heavy lion ones in front

 and hooved goat ones at the back while a scaled serpent tail

 lashed at the ground. Snake always felt best when he was lying

 against the ground and belly scales were where belly scales

 belonged, while Lion preferred to face forward-and move in

 that direction.

   "I, on the other hand," said Goat to himself in a philo-

 sophical manner, "find as much to comment upon looking back

 as I ever might looking forward. It is, perhaps, better that Lion

 usually does the forward looking. Lion is not overburdened

  

 with scruple, with metaphysical consideration, with introspec-

 tion. If it were up to Goat, Chimera might hover forever upon

 the brink of action without taking it. I, however, am much

 needed as a kind of balance, for if it were up to Lion or Snake

 alone, we would be embroiled in continual calamity."

   This was more or less true. Lion had few doubts about his

 actions. As he had said on more than one occasion, "I may be

 wrong, but I am never in doubt." Goat, on the other hand, was

 seldom wrong but often in doubt about virtually everything.

 Snake did not care. Wrong or right, venom, spite, and suspicion

 met either condition.

   "Have you ever speculated," began Goat, "on what a strange

 mosaic we are? I am continually amazed by the difference, the

 distinctions, the-"

   "Arragh," roared Lion. "I am outside, Goat. I want to be

 inside. This is no time for lectures." He began to move them

 along the wall, pace on pace of lion feet, goat hooves trotting

 behind, snake tail lashing, rattling, a constant counterpoint to

 the heavy breath of the Chimera, the hot, fiery breath of the

 Chimera. "Can I bum this wall?" Lion roared, eager to make

 the attempt.

   Mild-voiced Goat, remonstrating, urging whenever possible

 a less violent course of action. "That shouldn't be necessary.

 We see tracks. A vehicle has come this way, from out there in

 the haze toward this place." Goat saw two earth colored lines

 imposed upon the spongy gray-green of the plain, coming out

 of a nothing haze into the reality of wherever they were, vaguely

 paralleling the wall, swerving to meet it far ahead.

   "Tracksss mean people," Snake whispered. "It isss bessst

 to ssstay away from people."

   "Shhh," said Goat kindly. "We won't let them hurt you."

 Goat was watchful of Snake's feelings. Snake's fangs rested

 very near Goat's backbone, and Snake was not always logical

 in his feelings of persecution.

   "They could not hurt me," roared Lion. "I am too powerful

 for them. Besides, why would they? Who would wish to wound

 anything as handsome as I? As elegantly virile? As marvelously

 strong? As-"

   "Yes, yes," murmured Goat. "Quite right. Lion, we are

 veering away from the tracks. Cleave a bit more closely to

  

 their direction and we may come sooner to some break in the

 wall. Ah. We thought so. Let us turn our head a bit more-

 yes. See there. A gate!"

   "People," warned Snake again, restlessly shifting his head

 from side to side upon its stubby neck. "Bessst to avoid. Why

 ssshould anyone go inssside?"

   "Marianne," growled Lion. "I want her."

   "Marianne," murmured Goat, "needs help."

   "Marianne," hissed Snake, "should look out for herssself

 asss ssshe isss perfectly capable of doing. It isss dangerousss

 to go sssaving people."

   The gate which they approached was hardly worthy of the

 name, being merely a shadowy interruption of the featureless

 plane of the wall, two penciled lines with a cross line above,

 and only the twin gullies of vehicle tracks leading to and under

 it signifying that something here might open. Lion scratched

 at it with his huge paws without effect.

   "Let us try," urged Goat. "Horns are very good for this sort

 of thing." He turned the reluctant neck until Goat faced for-

 ward, lowered the head, thrust the huge, curling horns against

 the shadowy doorway and began to push, goat hooves and lion

 feet thrusting deep into the soil of the place as Chimera leaned

 into the effort. Slowly, complainingly, the door opened. Chi-

 mera moved into the wall, through the tunnel under the wall,

 and out onto bare earth which extended from the wall itself to

 the outskirts of a dark, silent city. Far in the center of that city

 a squat, ugly tower poured smoke into the gray sky and blazed

 with beacon light. Lion could hear the sound of a crowd and

 the manic scream of a Manticore.

   "Manticore," hissed Snake. "Vicsssious, poisssonousss."

   "No match for me," bellowed Lion. "I never saw a Man-

 ticore I couldn't tear up and eat for breakfast."

   "We have seen very few Manticores, actually," said Goat.

 "One or two. Both of them, as I recall, were immature at the

 time. Hardly a representative sample. Slowly, Lion, slowly."

   Lion, not listening, bounded away toward the outskirts of

 the city and down the nearest empty street, Snake flying hid-

 eously behind. Goat sighed and began to brake the hind feet

 of Chimera, slowing their progress. Lion panted and growled,

 but Goat brought him to a halt.

  

   "Slowly, Lion. If you want Marianne, it would be better to

 find her while both she and we are in one piece-so to speak.

 Let us not confront Manticore head on. Let us first see what

 the situation is."

   "Ssspy it out," whispered Snake. "Sssneak about a little."

   "Dishonorable," roared Lion. "Right always conquers. Right

 makes might!"

   "Right makesss dead Lionsss, sssometimesss," hissed Snake.

 "Lisssten to Goat."

   Snarling, but impotent to move Goat's hind feet any faster

 than Goat wished them to move, Lion abated his mad charge

 through the city streets and even allowed Goat to turn the neck

 about to allow Goat some say in which way they went. They

 continued moving toward the tower, but Goat chose dark ways

 which were free of traffic. He could hear the sounds of vehicles,

 always on other streets, and the roar of a mob, and these were

 easy to avoid. It was less simple to avoid the vague, swimming

 light which pervaded some places, the feeling that millions of

 tiny beings hung about one making shadows and shifts in the

 fabric of the air. Still, Chimera made good progress toward the

 tower, and the flaming light from it came more clearly with

 each cross street they put behind them.

   At last they seemed to be only one street away, and Goat

 urged Lion toward a fire escape which zigzagged up the side

 of a building near them. "Let's have a look from up there," he

 urged. "We should be able to see the tower and the street below

 it."Lion shook his massive head, making the rough curls of

 mane flick into Goat's eyes, and opened his mouth as though

 to roar, but was stopped in an instant by a curious pain in his

 back parts. He turned his head to see Snake's head poised over

 a flank, one fang barely inserted into the hairy hide of Chimera.

   "Lisssten to Goat, Lion. If it is going to die sssenssslessly,

 might as well die here. Lisssten to Goat."

   Goat slitted his eyes, wondering once again at the strange-

 ness of life and being. Seldom did he feel Snake was an ally,

 but in this case the serpent part was willing to help Goat in the

 interest of discretion. He turned head front and tip-tapped hind

 feet up the stairs behind the pad-pad of lion feet. The roof was

  

 flat, and they peered over a low parapet at the convocation

 below.

   Greasy Girls were dancing in the street, before and around

 the Manticore who slashed at them, sending an occasional slick

 body flying to crash into a wall and slide to its base, resting

 there in limp, bloody clutter. On the outer stairs of the tower

 were many bulky forms, most with weapons of one kind or

 another, some with missiles which were being hurled at the

 Manticore to increase his fury. High in the square tower, a little

 above the place Chimera stood, firelight blazed from arcaded

 openings on all sides, lighting the street but leaving the outer

 stairs of the tower in virtual darkness. Chimera could see figures

 moving in this firelight, one man, two women, bringing more

 fuel for the fire. Before Goat could intervene, Lion roared, one

 shattering roar which sent pieces of the parapet flying into the

 street and shuddered the building beneath them. While Goat

 was still trying to decide what to do about this, Lion had them

 halfway down the fire escape once more, and by the time Goat

 had formulated his expostulation, Lion had them in the street,

 confronting the Manticore, roaring once more to make the street

 echo and thunder with the noise.

   "Beast," challenged Lion. "Horrid monster! Ugly creature!

 Hideous malefactor! Stand and fight, monster!"

   "Monster," screamed the Manticore, throwing back his

 dreadful head in a laugh which drowned the Lion's roar. "Mon-

 ster. Old Crazy-Quilt! Old Bits-and-Pieces! Old Snake's Tail,

 Cat's Face! Look at the monster crying monster. Aha, ha,

 haroo, ha ha! Pot calls kettle black. Snake calls lizard low.

 Frog calls newt slimy. Chimera calls Manticore monster! Aha,

 ha, haroo, ha ha!"

   This pejorative barrage would have stopped Goat in his

 tracks while he thought it out. Lion was not slowed by it,

 hardly heard it. Snake was already so infuriated by the noise

 and the disturbance that his fangs were fully extended and

 dripping with poison. Thus Goat was bypassed, left to think

 the matter over while Chimera went to battle. The first Man-

 ticore knew of it was that he found a huge wound slashed into

 his side by fangs while claws raked at his flanks and a needle

 strike told him Snake had managed to get in one bite in passing.

  

 Manticore turned to look into the calm and considering eyes

 of Goat for one split moment before Chimera turned and he

 faced Lion once more. The look from Goat had been more

 wounding than the bites or slashes, for it had both recognized

 him and shown pity, an emotion with which Manticore was

 generally unfamiliar but knew to be lethal.

   "Cat's Face, am I?" snarled Lion. "Feel my cat's teeth,

 then, monster." And he went by once more, slashing at the

 other side. This time Manticore was ready for him, and the

 great scorpion tail came down to strike Goat's back in front of

 Snake's head.

   "I am immune," remarked Goat to Manticore. "Though

 venom may give me some painful moments, it should be ob-

 vious to any sensible observer that immunity to any lasting

 effects of poison would be necessary for such a creature as I.

 While I am able, most of the time, to keep Snake's feelings

 of persecution ameliorated, from time to time even my elo-

 quence and powers of persuasion are insufficient, and Snake

 expresses his feelings of powerlessness against the world in a

 sly and poisonous attack...."

   These words were lost in the general confusion, though Goat

 went on to explain at some length the evolutionary attributes

 most necessary to the survival of Chimerae. Meantime, Man-

 ticore's venom was making him unusually irritable, and at last

 he fell silent, focused upon the sensations emanating from

 within.

   The Manticore had fallen back, his screams betraying more

 pain and confusion than challenge. While Chimera was immune

 to venom, Manticore was not, and Snake's bite was beginning

 to tell upon the monster, weakening it and making it feeble.

 Around it the Greasy Girls drew away, murmuring to them-

 selves, and from the steps of the church the hierarch beckoned

 to them. Sorrowful music, which had stopped at the height of

 the battle, resumed once more with a funereal sound which

 seemed to affect the Manticore adversely for it screamed in

 agitation at the noise, an agonized bellowing.

   High above, Marianne and Grassi watched from the tower

 as Helen continued fueling the signal fire. Though all three

 presumed that their help had already arrived, it had done so in

 such outlandish guise as to make them somewhat doubtful

  

 whether this was, in fact, all they were to expect. Thus by

 mutual and unspoken consent the fire had been kept burning

 in the hope that something else, something more acceptable

 and usual in appearance, might manifest itself. Now that the

 battle began to howl its way toward what appeared to be a final

 climax, they had begun to doubt that any further intervention

 would be afforded.

   "Is that Macravail?" asked Marianne finally, having post-

 poned asking the question out of deference to Grassi.

   "I believe, pretty lady, that it is, though I cannot say with

 certainty and must admit to considerable surprise. It is not a

 creature I would have approached on the street with glad pro-

 testations of acquaintance. Still, there are familiar things about

 it.""Ah," said Marianne encouragingly.

   Grassi nodded thoughtfully. "I recognize the pride in the

 roar. From time to time I seem to hear the goat part of it

 commenting in scholarly fashion on something or other, and

 that, too, I recognize. While I hesitate to say so, even the hiss

 of the serpent part is somewhat familiar to me, though I am

 proud to say it evokes no general feeling of remembrance."

   "If I may choose a part," said Marianne, "I will choose the

 goat part."

   "Forgive me for disagreeing, pretty lady," Grassi interrupted

 her, "but in the current situation, it seems to me that the lion

 part is doing very well for our cause."

   She assented to this, still regarding the great teeth of the

 lion with no less disfavor than she regarded the great teeth of

 the Manticore. Those teeth might be of differing shapes and

 arrangement, but both sets served the same purpose; both were

 hungry, powerful, forceful, and aggressive. She did not have

 time to comment on this, however, for a long black car had

 driven to the corner of the street where the battle raged, and

 she recognized all too well the figure which got out of it.

 "Madame Delubovoska," she sighed, a cold breath of danger

 going down her back which chilled even the heat of the fire.

   "Who is this?" asked Helen. "Is it the same? Oh, by Zurvan

 the Timeless, it is the same woman who sent my David to this

 place." And she raised a heavy piece of broken furniture above

 her head and cast it with all her strength toward the woman in

  

 the street below. The missile fell short, but it sufficed to attract

 Madame's attention to those who peered down at her from

 above. Madame's arm came up, pointing, and they heard her

 scream orders to the Manticore, orders which made that beast

 turn laboriously and tear his way through the few remaining

 Greasy Girls toward the bottom of the stair where he was met

 with other missiles flung by those of David's party. The Man-

 ticore cowered, bleated in a strangely sheep-like way, but was

 driven forward by Madame's screams to attempt the stairway.

   Chimera had been momentarily ignored in this rearrange-

 ment of the battle, an oversight which Lion-too late restrained

 by Goat-rectified by an ear-shattering roar and a plunge to-

 ward the Manticore's backside.

   "You'll go blind if that stinger hits your eyes," said Goat.

 "Your face will swell up, and you'll look terrible. You might

 lose your marvelous appearance forever. Careful, Lion. Pru-

 dence. A little prudence."

   "He's attacking Marianne," roared Lion. "She's mine. He

 can't have her."

   "He isn't yet near Marianne," said Goat. "That woman, on

 the other hand, is up to something and is very near to us."

 Madame was pointing at Chimera with one hand while the

 other hand twisted high in the air, as though she turned a great

 spigot on some unseen keg to release a force against them.

 Goat said again, so urgently that Lion turned to see the threat,

 "She is very near to us...."

   Lion, as usual, did not wait on his decision but attacked the

 woman at once, causing her to abort the twisting motion and

 flee toward her car in a curiously arachnoid scramble, all arms

 and legs in a scurry of furious activity. From the car she cried

 an imperious summons to the Manticore. That beast backed

 down the stair, crying its pain from several wounds and then

 away down the street after the retreating car.

   Chimera heard Marianne crying a trumpet call from the

 tower. "The library. She's going to the library. After her, every-

 one!" And in answer to that cry the Greasy Girls poured from

 the church, suddenly armed against what they had worshiped,

 the resistance fighters boiled away from the tower stairs, and

 Helen led the other two in a wild scramble down to the place

  

 where the Chimera, confused by this sudden turn of events,

 awaited them.

   "Marianne," growled Lion. "I have saved you."

   "Marianne," murmured Goat, "it's good that you are not

 injured."

   "Marianne," hissed Snake, "ssshould be assshamed to have

 ssstarted this messss."

   "Macravail?" asked Grassi doubtfully. "Makr Avehl?"

   The Chimera sat down, Lion licking the blood from his feet,

 making a face of revulsion. Goat managed to turn the head

 slightly so that he faced Grassi. "Aghrehond," he said. "The

 beacon was your work, I assume?"

   "Actually, sir, it was Marianne's. She became very deter-

 mined, all at once. Very wild, almost, taking no advice at all."

   "Actually, it was I," agreed Marianne, coming forward to

 lay her hand upon Goat's muzzle, stroking. "I had reached the

 end of my patience. Though I didn't expect... you."

   "What did you exssspect?" hissed Snake. "A prinssse in

 ssshining armor? On a white horssse?"

   Marianne drew back, away from the weaving head of Snake,

 in so doing confronting Lion's lustfully adoring eyes. Lion

 shook his head, fluffing his great mane and posing for her,

 semi-rampant.

   "Pat him," whispered Goat, "or we'll never get away from

 here."

   "Away?" She was suddenly unsure, doubtful.

   "My dear, surely you don't think the Manticore and the

 woman have gone forever? They have simply made a strategic

 retreat. It must be now, or never, don't you think? I am often

 accused of making unconscionable delays, but my sense of

 occasion is very strong and it tells me that now is the time of

 their defeat-or ours."

   Marianne, hands sunk deep in Lion's mane, nodded to this.

 "Where, where is Helen?" she asked, turning to take inventory

 of the little group.

   "She went after them," said Grassi. "Waving a bludgeon of

 some sort and crying for blood. If we are to be part of this

 denouement, we had best follow."

   "If you will ride, Marianne," said Goat, "we may get on a

  

 bit faster." And he crouched the back legs a little to let her get

 on Chimera's back, holding herself well forward by gripping

 Goat's horns. They set off at Lion's usual heedless pace, Mr.

 Grassi puffing along behind and Marianne holding on in deep

 dread of Snake's fangs, so close behind her. They fled down

 dark streets littered with bits of the posters which were shed-

 ding from the walls as leaves drop in the fall, a constant shower

 of fragments slipping from the walls to pile on the streets in a

 whispering mass. Here and there as they ran they saw lights

 coming on in upper windows. They came to a region of tall,

 narrow-fronted houses staring over their stoops, a littered park

 around a dilapidated band stand, shrubbery, a corner, and then

 the portico of the library itself, gray ghost light shining out at

 them from behind tall, glass .doors. Around this place the re-

 sistance had gathered, figures capering around bonfires and

 voices screaming defiance and threat. Marianne thought she

 could see the Manticore inside the building, crouched on the

 great stairway, peering out at them, but she could not be sure.

 She dismounted, standing close to Chimera, one arm thrown

 around its neck, cheek close to Goat's lips.

   "They are invulnerable in there," said Goat. "It is a redoubt,

 a fortress, bound about with enchantments and spells. From

 there they can strike at us when they will, and all we can do

 is bottle them up, perhaps, for a time. We cannot get at them

 to defeat them. It is not good enough merely to stay here

 forever, for then we might ask whether we hold them or they

 us.""If we were in Mr. Grassi's apartment," said Marianne, "I

 would take my book and read in it, as he has taught me to do,

 finding in my own story the thing I must do next. Since the

 book is not here, then I must simply remember what is in it."

   "Can you do that?" asked Goat, curiously. "We find ourself

 unable to remember accurately things that have happened in

 the past. We often mis-remember them in order to make them

 more logical or more appropriate to their time or circumstance,

 or they become mis-remembered through too frequent repeti-

 tion or not being remembered enough. To remember one's own

 story accurately is a talent too few creatures are capable of...."

   "I will do it," said Marianne, "because it is necessary." She

 sat down on the ground, leaning on one of Lion's great front

  

 legs with his massive head sheltering her from above, and put

 her face into her hands. The capering figures had put her in

 mind of the time she had seen them last, when their black

 shadows cavorted around the fire outside the basement room.

 They had been burning the book she had put out the coal chute.

 The coal chute. There had been a way out-for something.

 There could be a way in-for someone. "Mr. Grassi, find

 Helen, will you? Tell her to find David and bring him here. I

 have thought of a way to get in."

   He came quickly, face smudged with torch soot, panting

 from the running, face no less hard-set against her than it had

 been when last she had seen him. "What now?" he demanded.

 "Have you decided to help us?"

   "I was always willing to help you," she replied, "as you

 would have known if you had stopped accusing me and listened.

 Were you among those who asked that a book be put out the

 coal chute? When I was in the library?"

   "He was, and I," cried the cloud-haired woman who stood

 just behind him. "We burned the book, and at least one of us

 got away."

   "If I could put the book out, why couldn't some of us get

 in?" asked Marianne. "We could open the doors from inside."

   There was a chorus of approbation at this, interrupted by

 Goat and Grassi, both speaking at once. "Dear pretty lady,

 think, do! Could you open them from inside before?" and "If

 it were that simple, Marianne, I think they would have thought

 of it and set some guard against it."

   "No, no," she exclaimed. "Of course I couldn't open them

 before, because I was under a malign enchantment. You told

 me that, Mr. Grassi. You also said that Macravail was the expert

 on malign enchantment, and is he not here, now? You said he

 was." She stood up, away from Chimera and looked at him

 with measuring eyes. "Are you, indeed, expert in malign en-

 chantment? Can you undo whatever it is the Madame has done

 with that place?"

   The question was meaningless to Lion. It meant much to

 Goat, much of a disturbing nature, making him believe that in

 some other place or time Chimera might have been otherwise

 than now presented to this mob. Malign enchantment. Ah. Now

 there was a question meriting some lengthy study. Unfortu-

  

 nately, there would be no time for lengthy study, or even for

 brief study, for the mob gathered 'round had it in mind to force

 some issue, whether or no, and to make something happen,

 for good or for ill, they seemed to care not. Still, Goat's curious

 mind told them that they were in some danger from this sug-

 gestion, and that if the occasion were to be saved, Goat must

 do it.

   "Marianne," he said, turning the neck so that he faced her

 and the crowd, "if we had much uninterrupted time, we might

 deal with Madame's enchantments. We have no time at all.

 Whatever we do must be done in the next moments, for she is

 a sly horror who will escape us if we give her time."

   "Araagh," roared Marianne, sounding not unlike Lion in

 that moment, full of fury, the flywheel of anger within her

 spinning as though to fling its fragments upon all the world.

 "Either there is too much time or not enough, either we may

 act or we may not, we may remember or we may not, and all

 at her behest. Then if there is no time to do anything sly and

 guileful, be done! Let us burn the building down, and her within

 it!"Goat nodded. "Much though it pains me to say so, in this

 case-and in this case only, not to establish a precedent for

 future action-I believe you are right."

   This was greeted with a louder roar of approval than before,

 augmented by Lion, who obviously considered the suggestion

 timely. He gave Goat no further time to talk, but leaped upon

 the portico and breathed flame upon the doors of the place.

 Inside, Manticore leaped back, bleating its odd, plaintive cry,

 so timid in comparison to the scream with which it had terrified

 the city. Still, it was a terror for no reason. Chimera's flames

 splashed against the great glass doors and did no more than

 darken them slightly.

   "The building is brick," said Marianne. "It won't burn."

   "Oh, it will bum," said David. "We have only to find the

 weak places. There are other doors, ones made of wood. There

 are window frames, also of wood. There are shingles, case-

 ments, porches, all of wood. Come, beast, let us find the way

 to kindle this fire...." And the mob swept away, leaving Grassi

 and Marianne to sit alone upon the curb.

   "Well, lady, it seems we have made a great turmoil here.

  

 You are suddenly so forceful, you have taken this world in a

 storm. Tsk. I was not even needed."

   "Oh, you were," she hugged him briefly. "Certainly you

 were. It's just that I finally got tired of flopping about in this

 ridiculous world. I mean, why hadn't it occurred to us how

 silly it was to run from a stuffed Manticore? Had you thought

 of that? The thing is stuffed! It lives in a taxidermist's window!"

   "Still, it rages lively enough," he objected.

   "Well, yes. But so do... puppets. So do... machines. So

 do many things which are not really alive."

   "Things which can kill one dead enough, pretty lady. Things

 which can do much evil, whether they are alive or no."

   'True. Still, being afraid of them rather than of the power

 which moves them is not sensible, is it, Mr. Grassi? Or so I

 have told myself this night. Do you know what those resistance

 people told me? They told me that I knew the Manticore, knew

 its name. Was kin to it. That made me very angry, Mr. Grassi.

 So angry I have forgotten to be afraid." And she sat steamily

 listening to the crash and roar of the crowd, the upwelling

 shouts as they found something vulnerable to their liking in the

 library. Her attention was drawn to the building by a flickering

 light which came through the front doors, firelight, dancing

 light from deep within the building. The Chimera had suc-

 ceeded in setting the place on fire.

   "All the books," she crowed, "free. All the people let go.

 No more Manticore."

   She spoke too soon. There was a crash of glass, a crash

 exactly like that with which the Manticore announced his usual

 walk as the doors shattered in lethal shards and the great beast

 stood forth upon the porch, fur smoking, hair ablaze, driven

 into madness by pain and terror. Screaming its challenge the

 beast ran toward her, mouth gaping wide, slavering, teeth bared

 and claws extended as they tore into the ground. Chimera was

 behind the building. There was no place to hide. Sobbing,

 Grassi tried to get in front of Marianne only to have her thrust

 him away with the strength of ten women. She rose from the

 curb, rose, and went on rising, higher and higher, a giantess,

 looming in her height as tall as the tower they had left, growing

 greater with each moment, so blown up with rage that Grassi

 could not see her eyes where they looked down from the dark-

  

 ness of that looming height, though he heard her voice thun-

 dering at them like continents colliding.

    "Down, dog. Down, beast. Down you fat cat, you mur-

 dering monster from a child's dream; I have had enough of

 you. I have had enough of that suffocating murderess, your

 aunt. You have killed what was dear to me. It was you killed

 Cloud-haired mama, Harvey, you. I will have vengeance on

 you. Run now, cur, before I squash you as I would squash a

 beetle on this street."

   There was silence, utter silence, and Grassi hid his head

 between his hands, expecting that the sky would fall. Nothing.

 Nothing. He peeked between his fingers to see her standing

 upon the curb, staring at the space where the Manticore had

 been. There was no Manticore. Before them the library burned

 briskly, sending great clouds of foul-smelling smoke into the

 general murk. There was cheering from the crowd. Chimera

 came around the corner of the building, paused when he saw

 the broken doors, and leaped toward them, roaring a challenge

 for Manticore. When this was not answered, he bounded about,

 repeating it. When it was still not answered, he came to Mari-

 anne and lay down at her feet, beginning to purr with enormous

 satisfaction.

   She put her arms around his neck and stared away into space

 thoughtfully, while Goat nuzzled at her neck. Above them the

 sky began to lighten. The noise of the crowd grew soft, then

 softer still. The outlines of the city wavered, began to pulse,

 then dim. Grassi blinked, blinked again, and found himself

 seated beside Makr Avehl on a grassy bank beneath a flowering

 tree. Water leaping downward told him they were in moun-

 tainous country. There was no sign of Marianne.

  

 THAT PART OF Makr Avehl Zahmani which was of a calm and

 considering nature was not surprised to find itself in the forests

 of Alphenlicht, within sight of the Holy Mountain which held

 the Cave of Light. That part of Aghrehond which was also of

 a calm and considering nature was not surprised to find Helen

 Navidi and her husband, David, on the slopes of the same

 mountain, evidently having lost their way during a mushroom

 hunting expedition. At least, so Helen said, shaking her head

 and giving every appearance of confusion. David was less sure

 and had the look about him of a man recovering from a serious

 illness. Since the couple had disappeared some four years be-

 fore, Makr Avehl was of the opinion the illness was recent and

 largely illusory, but he said nothing of the kind to the couple.

 How they had moved from whatever place Madame had sent

 David to Marianne's own world was a mystery which he had

 no time to solve at the moment, though he resolved to do it at

 a later time.

   That part of Makr Avehl Zahmani which was impetuous and

 fiery was in a frenzy to find itself thousands of miles from the

 place it assumed Marianne Zahmani to be. That part of Makr

  

 Avehl crossed miles of countryside in less time than good sense

 said it could be done to lead a panting Aghrehond into the

 Residence and to a telephone. Phone service into and out of

 Alphenlicht was always problematical. After too much time

 and some confusion, he was connected with Ellat, where he

 had known she would be, in Marianne's apartment in a city

 thousands of miles away.

   "By Zurvan, Makr Avehl, where are you? The Residence?

 How? When? Why didn't you..."

   To all of which he merely repeated what he had been saying

 since she answered the phone, "Is Marianne there, Ellat? Have

 you seen her?" receiving the same answer of incomprehension

 and at last, verbal confirmation.

   "I haven't seen her. Makr Avehl, I haven't seen her. About

 an hour ago, a man came to the door who said he had just

 bought the house a week or so ago and was surprised to find

 anyone in it. The people downstairs, Mrs. Winesap and her

 friend, have disappeared. It doesn't even look recently lived

 in down there. A piece of plaster fell off the wall in the front

 room a while ago. Something-Makr Avehl, something-"

   He thought furiously, unable to think and yet forced to

 consider something, whatever thing it might be. Finally, full

 of passionate sorrow, he said, "Ellat. Pick up the things I gave

 her-the pictures, the little carvings, that medicine bag on the

 window seat. The pot of crocuses, Ellat. If you see anything

 else there that looks as though she treasured it, bring it. Then

 get out of there. The car is still there. Drive to a hotel. When

 you get there, call me. Don't linger, Ellat. I have a feeling

 about this...."

   He let her go, feeling that to hold her longer on the phone

 might be to hold her in some position of danger. He walked

 about the Residence, moving here and there like a frustrated

 animal in a cage, moving, moving, not knowing where he went

 or what he did. Eventually he was called to the phone once

 more to hear Ellat's voice.

   "There was nothing there, Makr Avehl. Nothing of hers at

 all. When I left, the walls were turning dingy. The curtains

 were all tattered. There was nothing in her closet, nothing in

 the drawers of her dressing table. Nothing in the bathroom

 medicine cabinet. Only the things you gave her, and I brought

  

 them away. When I left, the place was all overgrown, as though no one had lived there for years, decades. It was frightening."

   "Ah," he said. "Then she chose another world, somewhere

 else...."

   "A false world, Makr Avehl? One of the false worlds?"

   "I don't know. When I have rested, perhaps I will ask the

 Cave. Perhaps it is not one of the false worlds at all. Perhaps

 some other... well. Aghrehond says that at the end she was

 very strong, Ellat, a giantess. Nothing could stand against her.

 She was powerful, shattering. Still, she hugged me... I..."

 He could say nothing more, and she asked him nothing more.

   Later she called Aghrehond and learned that they had given

 Makr Avehl something to make him sleep, for he had been

 tearing at himself in his rage and frustration until they feared

 for him. "When will you be home, Mistress?" he asked. "We

 need you here."

   "As soon as a plane can bring me. I'll have to come in to

 Van, in Turkey. Lake Urmia is out of the question with Iran

 behaving as it is. I'll come to Van, Hondi. I will send word

 when I leave. Send a car to meet me."

   She came within the few days it took for Makr Avehl to

 resume the outward appearance of the calm, loquacious, hu-

 morous man he had been before, though there were shadows

 in his eyes and he occasionally hissed in a powerless fury which

 only Aghrehond understood. He was, if anything, more in-

 clined to lecture on any subject whatsoever, and it was obvious

 to those who knew him well that he was a man hovering at the

 edge of breakdown. Ellat, seeing him, was not relieved of

 anxiety.

   "He must go to the Cave, Hondi. He must find an answer.

 He is eating himself up not having an answer."

   "So I have urged him, Mistress. He will not go. He is afraid

 there is no answer, and he dares not let himself know that."

   "No. If there is no answer, he must know that. He cannot

 begin to heal until he knows." And she set about the business

 of seeking the Cave on Makr Avehl's behalf.

   He was not helpful-not resentful, not overly full of excuse

 or delay, simply not assisting in the process. He ate the ritual

 meal without comment and without enjoyment. He was dressed

 in the ritual robe at dawn, for Ellat had determined that a dawn

  

 reading would be most likely to produce results. He suffered

 himself to be driven to the foot of the mountain where the easy

 slope of the trail wound upward toward the entrance of the

 Cave, and to be urged from the car toward the ascent. Once

 on the path, however, it was only the pressure of Ellat's arm

 on the one side and Aghrehond's on the other which forced

 him upward. Birds were twittering their pre-dawn exercises as

 they crossed one of the small streams which striped the moun-

 tain with silver sound. Far away cows were lowing in a meadow,

 and Aghrehond smiled, glad of the sound in the stillness of

 morning. They turned to wind their way back, then turned

 again and again, coming at last to the carven door which stood

 guard at the east portal of the Cave. There Nalavi and Cyram

 and the girl waited, the girl Makr Avehl thought had scary eyes.

 Therat. They lighted their way into the Cave, down the sandy,

 narrow cavern which opened into the great, round hall, there

 to group themselves around the altar, utter the proper words,

 and put out their lamps.

   Darkness surrounded them. Only their breathing could be

 heard in the quiet. Outside the sun would be rising, spreading

 its rays upon the world, letting them fall upon the mountaintop

 to be reflected from millions of dancing leaves, from the liquid

 eyes of deer, from the barrels of a hunter's gun, from pools of

 dew and a half hundred leaping streams, down a hundred thou-

 sand tortuous tunnels and holes into the body of the mountain,

 some to be lost forever in that great pile, other rays to be

 reflected once, and again, and again, until they fell into the

 cavern where they could be seen, upon carvings put there when

 Rome was an empire, when Picts roamed in forests not yet

 ruled by Saxons, when Charlemagne ruled.... Ellat heard Makr

 Avehl sigh, sigh with a hopeless sound as he turned to see

 where the light fell.

   "A child," said Therat firmly. "The light falls on a child."

 Indeed, above their heads the light fell on a tiny carving of a

 child, a young girl, standing in a garden.

   "A mother," said Nalavi. "The light falls on a mother." This

 carving was larger, older, partly obliterated by the slow drip

 of water over the centuries, but unmistakably a mother nursing

 a child.

   "A knife," said Cyram. "The light falls upon a knife." And

  

 that symbol, too, was clearly etched in the gray stone beneath

 the golden ray of light which leaked down on it through all the

 massive weight of the mountain above.

   They waited, waited, but these rays held firm and no others

 broke the dark. At last Therat murmured the appropriate pray-

 ers, the lamps were lit, and they left the place.

   At the portal, they stopped for a time to look upon Al-

 phenlicht, bright in the dawn. It was the girl, Therat, who said,

 "Archmage, may a Kavi offer you assistance?"

   "One might, Therat, except that I have found the signs easy

 to read. She has gone back into childhood, and I cannot go to

 her there. She has gone into her own time. I cannot go. No

 Kavi has ever gone."

   "This is true, Archmage. And yet, if I were you, I would

 consider that time moves, and that her childhood was, but is

 not now." And Therat favored him with a sharp, challenging

 glance from her eagle's eyes before bowing deeply before him,

 as did Nalavi and Cyram, though ordinarily they would have

 been full of banter and nonsense. They took themselves away,

 leaving Ellat and Aghrehond with him on that high place.

   "Childhood was, but is not now," mused Ellat. "Now what

 did she mean by that, Makr Avehl?"

   "It means, dear Mistress," said Aghrehond, for Makr Avehl

 gave no evidence of having heard her, "that if the pretty lady,

 Marianne, went back to being a girl-child, she has had to grow

 up again."

   "Exactly," said Makr Avehl, slapping his hands against his

 shoulders as though to wake himself from some bad dream or

 malevolent spell. "She has had to grow up again."

  

 THEY SAT AT a table on the terrace overlooking acres of lawn

 on which a large machine surmounted by a small man with a

 gay umbrella over his head made undulating stripes and a smell

 of cut hay. The small man had a brown, round belly, an ancient

 straw hat, and a pipe. Makr Avehl thought he looked supremely

 contented atop the clattering machine and wished that he him-

 self could share that contentment. Though his outer self gave

 the appearance of calm, inside he was a tempest of hope and

 desire and longing and half a dozen other emotions he had not

 taken trouble to identify. It had taken several days of concen-

 trated effort to find this place and another week to obtain an

 invitation. The woman across the table from him knew nothing

 of this. She sipped from her tall glass, following his gaze out

 across the lawns.

   "You are admiring Mr. Tanaka's stomach," she said. "I have

 thought of suggesting to him that he might wear a shut while

 running the mower-it is his newest and most glorious toy-

 but he enjoys the sun so. When he gets bored with the thing,

 he'll let one of his grandchildren run it. None of Robert's or

 Richard's children will care whether they wear shirts, either,

  

 though their fathers are very dignified." She laughed pleasantly,

 sipping from the tinkling glass once more. He examined her

 covertly, a slender, beautiful woman of almost fifty, hair es-

 caping its loose bun to make a cloud around her face. "Haur-

 vatat Zahmani, my husband, will be here momentarily. He will

 be so glad to meet you. He was so excited and pleased when

 you called."

   Makr Avehl cocked his head curiously. "Haurvatat? Surely

 that is a very old name among our people."

   "According to my husband it is. Haurvatat and Ameretat,

 among the Medes the twin gods of health and immortality. I

 don't know what possessed his parents to give him and his

 sister such names except that it reminded them of Alphenlicht.

 I simply call him Harve. It's much easier. Of course, he insisted

 on passing the names on to his own children. I call his son

 Harve, too, and my daughter is Marianne. It isn't that far from

 Ameretat but it falls easier on American ears."

   "Marianne," said Makr Avehl. "Yes. Oh, yes."

   "You say you met my daughter at the university?"

   "No. I did not meet her. I did see her, and was fascinated

 by the family likeness. She so resembled our family that I made

 inquiries-which led me to you and your charming husband.

 He was very kind on the phone, very hospitable to invite me

 down for the weekend." Actually, the process by which he had

 located them had been the reverse of this, from them to Mari-

 anne, but he had no intention of saying so.

   "My husband speaks often of Alphenlicht, though he has

 not seen it since he was a child."

   "You, ma'am-you remember it?"

   "Well, not really. My father came here to the embassy when

 I was only seven. He returned home several times, but I never

 went with him. Then, just at the time I would have gone, I

 met Haurvatat." She laughed again. "He was a young girl's

 dream, a bit older, and so good looking. I have never regretted

 marrying young."

   "He had been married before?" Makr Avehl kept his voice

 casual. "You mentioned his son, but your daughter."

   She nodded, a bit sadly he thought, and shook her glass so

 that it rang like little bells. "Yes. He had been married before.

 She died when young Harve was bom, young Haurvatat. Health.

  

 That's what the word 'haurvatat' means, you know. So sad."

 She seemed about to go on, but at the moment they heard a

 voice inside the nearest room and a booming laugh. The laugh

 preceded the man, and Makr Avehl rose to shake the hand of

 the tall, splendid form with patriarchal beard and flowing locks.

 Makr Avehl thought of carved frescoes at Persepolis, magnif-

 icent and ancient forms going back through the centuries. Haur-

 vatat Zahmani might well have been the sculptor's model for

 any of them.

   "Well, here you are, my boy. And looking exactly as I had

 pictured you. We do run to family likeness, don't we, we

 Zahmanis. Did you notice, Arti? Of course you did. He looks

 just as young Harve would have.... Well," heartily changing

 the subject, "we are delighted to have you as our guest mis

 weekend. Are you here for some diplomatic reason? Or should

 I ask?"

   Makr Avehl shook his head modestly. "You may ask, of

 course. I am here for no sensitive reason. I am here to buy

 agricultural machinery." Such was the reason he had invented

 out of whole cloth the week before when he had found that

 Marianne was studying livestock management at an agricultural

 college. "I was interested in some demonstration projects at

 the university your daughter attends. Something to do with

 orchard production." What Makr Avehl did not know about

 orchard production would have filled a library, but he smiled

 calmly, visualizing apples.

   "Ah!" Marianne's mother smiled enlightenment. "So that is

 where you met-not met? Merely saw? Ah, well, it is truly a

 family likeness. You saw her at the agricultural school. Such

 a profession for a woman! Her father was dead set against

 it...."

   "Oh, now, now, Arti. Not dead set. Doubtful. Put it that

 way. Just a little doubtful."

   "Doubtful." The woman made a sour mouth. "Full of fury

 and swearing and carrying on. Saw no reason for a woman to

 go to university at all. Well. He married me just out of high

 school. Possibly he thought someone would come along and

 carry Marianne off to the altar in the same way."

   "Marianne disabused me of that notion." The man plopped

 himself down comfortably, stroking his wife's hair as he went

  

 past her. "Said she'd many when she was ready and not before.

 I didn't believe it, thought it was all just youthful exuberance,

 thought she'd be tired of the work in a month. But she carried

 the day, convinced me. Very convincing young woman, my

 daughter. She did take a break in the middle of her education-

 traveled through your country, kinsman. Said she had always

 wanted to see it, know what it was like." He smiled hugely,

 very proud for all his protestations. "What do we call you, my

 boy, '"Your Excellency'? Just occurred to me that 'my boy'

 probably isn't de rigeur."

   "My name is Makr Avehl. Macro vail. It has a meaning 'as

 old and esoteric as your own, but I ignore that. If you say it

 properly, it sounds vaguely Scottish and acceptable." He was

 hardly following the conversation. So Marianne had traveled

 in Alphenlicht. In what world, what time had that been? Her

 father, all unaware, boomed on.

   "Ha. I like that. Scottish and acceptable, is it? Well, and

 what's unacceptable about Alphenlicht? Nothing I know of.

 Sorry I left the place, sometimes. Though, back then, the family

 thought there'd be conflict of some kind. You've done well,

 Prime Minister. Kept the villains at bay."

   "We've had help," smiled Makr Avehl, not surprised that

 they both interpreted this to mean help from the U.S. Neither

 of them had known anything of the Cave of Light, or of the

 real power of the Magi. Well, he hadn't expected that they

 would.

   Both of them looked up, across the meadows, and he fol-

 lowed their eyes across the granite balustrade where a horse

 emerged from the wood and galloped toward them over the

 pastures, the rider so well seated that she seemed almost to be

 part of the animal. Mrs. Zahmani followed his glance, nodded.

   "Marianne. I knew she'd be coming in soon. First thing

 when she gets here for the weekend is a ride, then next is a

 ride, then after that, a little ride...." She laughed. "That love

 of horses. I outgrew it myself, when I was about sixteen. Not

 so Marianne. Her love of horses has continued-despite every-

 thing." She shook her head, sad for some reason Makr Avehl

 was not privy to. "Well, she'll be surprised when I introduce

 you and tell her how you found us."

   Makr Avehl was not sure of that. He was not sure of much

  

 at the moment, least of all what it was that Marianne would

 know, or be surprised at. He himself had not really been sur-

 prised to find her father and mother still alive, healthy, still

 living the life of grace and elegance which had been mourned

 by the Marianne he had known. He had started his search very

 near this place, for Ellat had remembered what Marianne had

 said about her childhood home though he, Makr Avehl, had

 not. Having found the parents, it had not been difficult to find

 the daughter. After his lengthy conversations with Ellat and

 Aghrehond, he had not been really surprised by anything.

   A whisper of sound drew his attention to the doors behind

 him, thrust open from inside and held while a wheelchair was

 pushed from the house onto a ramp and then down to the shaded

 lawn, a white-clad attendant moving beside it. Makr Avehl

 frowned. The woman saw his expression.

   "Marianne's half brother," she whispered in explanation. "It

 was a great tragedy. In fact, I sometimes cannot understand

 Marianne still being so fond of horses."

   "Paralyzed?" asked Makr Avehl. The shrouded figure made

 no movement except that Makr Avehl saw the eyes shift toward

 him, as though the person there had recognized his voice.

 Stunned, he looked full into that immobile face. He knew that

 face, knew it as well as he knew his own. Harvey Zahmani,

 who had tried so hard to kill Marianne. Who had killed the

 couple standing beside him-in another world, in another time.

   "Completely paralyzed," the woman whispered. "He had

 just returned from a visit to your part of the world-the trip

 was a graduation gift from his father. He had visited an aunt

 in your neighboring country, Lubovosk. His mother came from

 there. He had been home less than a day when he and Marianne

 went out riding..."

   "Marianne told us it was a pack of wild dogs," said Haur-

 vatat Zahmani. "No one had ever seen them before. No one

 ever saw them after. They came out of nowhere. The first we

 knew was when Marianne came riding in. Her horse was all

 lathered, but she was steady as a rock even though she was

 only twelve at the time. Told us what had happened, where to

 find him. Thrown. His head and back must have hit a stone.

 He never walked again. Never spoke again." The man sighed

 deeply, reliving an old tragedy.

  

   Makr Avehl did not answer. His eyes were utterly fixed

 upon the woman riding to the stairs he stood upon, fixed upon

 Marianne, his Marianne. His hungry, predatory soul reached

 for her in glad possession, his sagacious, ruminative self eager

 to learn of her, rejoice in her....

   She looked up at him, smiling slightly, welcoming, as though

 she had expected him, something lightening in her eyes as if

 a shadow raised, a lusty gladness showing there which brought

 the blood to his cheeks.

   Behind her on the lawn he could see what had been Harvey

 S. Zahmani in the wheelchair, motionless, powerless, unable

 to do any harm, to anyone... ever.

   Deep inside, Snake whispered an unheeded warning.