Marianne, the Magus & the Manticore (11 page)

"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 i t . . . well, we see the result in every morning's news-papers,"

"Is that the kind of thing between Alphenlicht and Lubovosk? 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, almost 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 a s . . . 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 exist. ..."

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 n o t . . . 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 stables, 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 bringing 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 acquaintances, 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 relationship 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 something
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 upstairs 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 understand 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, Marianne, 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 pretend 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. Hysteria?" 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.