Wizard

They waited for her to say more, but that was it. Larry returned to his book, and Trini began to straighten things for the seventeenth time. On the cot, Robin slept quietly.

When Robin groaned, Cirocco was instantly at her side, and Larry was not far behind. Trini hovered behind them and had to retreat quickly when Cirocco moved to let Larry in to take Robin's pulse.

Robin opened her eyes when Larry touched her arm, tried to pull away, and blinked slowly. Something in Larry's voice calmed her. She looked at him, then at Cirocco. She did not see Trini in the shadows.

"I dreamed I ..." she began, then shook her head.

"How do you feel, Robin?" Cirocco asked. Robin's eyes moved slowly.

"Where were you?" she said petulantly.

"That's a good question. Can you listen to the answer? That way you won't have to talk for a while."

Robin nodded.

"Okay. First, I sent Hornpipe back to Titantown to get a crew to clear out the entrance to the stairs. If you remember, it was completely cut off."

Robin nodded again.

"It took awhile to get everyone there and longer than I'd thought to clear it all away. The Titanides were willing to work, but they behaved strangely under the cable. They'd wander away, and when you found them, they didn't remember leaving. So I had to hire some human help, too, and wasted even more time.

"But we got it clear and took a team of seven humans down to Tethys. The chamber was flooded higher than I've ever seen it. She wouldn't speak to me, and there was nothing I could do about it since even Gaea carries no weight with Tethys.

"So I came here. I was sure you all were dead, but I wouldn't believe it until I found your bodies, no matter how long it took. If Tethys had killed you, I ... I don't know what I would have done, but I would have done something to her she'd never forget. Anyway, there was that outside chance you had made it by her and into the catacombs."

"We did. And Valiha-"

"Don't talk yet. Save your strength. Now, as far as I know, me and Gaby are the only humans who have ever been down there, and I knew little about the catacombs except that they go on forever and are impossible to find your way through. I went to see Thea anyway and told her that if any of you showed up, she was to let you through without hindrance. Then I tried to explore the east end of the catacombs, and I had to give it up after a few weeks. I wasn't getting anywhere. I decided I'd risk leaving and organizing a group to come down there properly equipped and explore every meter of the place, and for that I had to order a lot of things from Earth. I didn't really think any of you had made it, you see, and I-"

"I understand," Robin said with a sniff. "But Thea ... oh, damn it. I thought I had... I thought I made it past her on my own. But she was just playing with me." She looked as if she were going to cry, but in the end she was too weak to do it.

Cirocco took Robin's hand.

"Pardon me," she said. "You misunderstood. I was a long way from satisfied Thea would take an order from me if I wasn't there to enforce it. She's obsessive about her privacy. I was afraid that if any of you did show up, she'd kill you and destroy the bodies and let Tethys take the blame since she knew I already thought that's what happened and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it unless I wanted to camp out on her doorstep for a few months. Maybe I should have done that anyway because-"

"That's all right," Robin said. She smiled weakly. "I handled it."

"You sure did, and someday I'd like to know how. Anyway, I did what I could-though I sure as hell wish I'd done more now-and I was going to start down to Thea in three or four more days when I got a call from Trini that you'd come knocking at her door. I got here as fast as I could."

Robin closed her eyes and nodded.

"Anyway," Cirocco went on after a pause, "there are a lot of things I've wanted to ask you, and if you feel up to it, maybe I can ask them now. The biggest thing that's been on my mind is why Gaby let you go down to Tethys in the first place. I know her, and she knows me, even if we don't always get along, and she should have known I'd find a way to clear those rocks and come in to get you all. Then, when she didn't show up with you, I wondered why she didn't, and now I'm wondering if she was hurt and couldn't..." Her voice trailed off. Robin had opened her eyes, and the look of horror there was so plain to Trini that she knew instantly what had happened. She turned away.

"I thought when you cleared away the rocks ..." Robin wailed.

Trini turned back, and it was as if Cirocco had turned to stone. Finally her lips moved, but her voice was dead.

"We found nothing," she said.

"I don't know what to say. We left her there. We wanted to bury her, but there was just no ..." She trailed off into tears, and Cirocco stood. Her eyes looked at nothing as she turned, and Trini knew she would never forget those dead eyes that swept over her as if she were not there as the Wizard of Gaea fumbled for the door latch and stepped outside onto the narrow porch. They heard her going down the ladder; then there was no sound at all but Robin's weeping.

They worried about her, but when they looked out, she was standing with her back to them, a hundred meters away, knee-deep in snow. She did not move for more than an hour. Trini was going to go out and get her, but Larry said give her more time. Then Robin said she had to talk to her, and he went down the ladder. Trini could see him speaking to her. Cirocco did not turn her head but did follow him when he put his hand on her shoulder.

When she was back inside, her face was still dead to all emotion as she knelt beside Robin's cot and waited.

"Gaby told us something," Robin began. "I'm sorry, but I think she wanted just you to hear it, and this room is too small for privacy."

"Larry, Trini," Cirocco said, "would you wait in the plane? I'll flash the lights in here when you can return."

Neither Cirocco nor Robin moved as the two of them put on their coats and boots and left, pulling the door closed quietly behind them. They spent an uncomfortable hour in the plane, protected from the wind but cold all the same. Neither of them complained. When the lights flashed, they returned, and Trini did not immediately see the difference in Cirocco's face, but it was there. It was still painful to look at, and it was still dead, in a sense. But it was not dead like the face of a corpse; it was more like a face carved in granite.

And the eyes burned.

40 Proud Heritage

There had to be easier things than shepherding a pregnant, disabled Titanide through a dark terrain that would have daunted a mountain goat. On the other hand, Chris could think of some things that were probably harder, and many things less pleasant. The company was some compensation, and the fact that the path was marked for them. Everything balanced, and it came to seem as if that were the way it should be. Valiha's arms grew stronger, but their pace did not improve because she was gaining weight. They had to be more careful than ever lest her growing awkwardness provoke a slip that might hurt her still-fragile forelegs. As she neared her term, the new delights of anterior sex play tapered off and stopped. But the frontal sex got even better as her legs improved. He gradually lost the exciting, exotic sense of alie

Valiha swelled like a ripening pumpkin. She grew more radiantly beautiful and, curiously, more mottled with brownish freckles.

There would be few surprises. Chris began completely ignorant of Titanide birthing, but by the time Serpent was ready to be born he knew as much as Valiha. He had been making many assumptions that led to needless apprehension.