Marianne, the Magus & the Manticore (26 page)

"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 shedding 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 resistance 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 repetition 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 enchantment? 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. Unfortunately, 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 suggestion, 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, casements, 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 succeeded 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 darkness of that looming height, though he heard her voice thundering at them like continents colliding.

"Down, dog. Down, beast. Down you fat cat, you murdering 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 Marianne 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 mountainous 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 before, 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.