Free Empire of Women & One of our Cities is Missing (Armchair Fiction Double Novels Book 25) by John Fletcher, Irving Cox Page A

second, and Gan
realized that living for centuries was perhaps not all peaches and cream.   Then the expression passed, and she smiled
again, perhaps at his suddenly lugubrious expression over hearing of her former
mates.  
    “You
needn’t fear me, Gan.   I am an
experienced woman, who has long ago given up the childish tricks by which young
women gain their ends.   If you need me,
come to me.   I will not pursue you.”  
    She
twitched at her mount’s reins, as if to ride ahead beyond earshot.   Gan reached out and seized the mort’s reins
in one big hand.  
    “You have
read my mind, Aphele, and answered my questions.   Can you also read the admiration and liking I
have for you?”
    She
settled back, her face relaxed from its bitterness as he went on:   “I want to know one more thing, and then no
more questions.   Has Celys been married
too, lost her mates the same way?   Is
she, too, centuries old?”
    She laughed
at his intent face ; a laugh at once mocking and
tender, as with a child.   “You have a
disappointment in store, my friend.   Your
Celys is not one, but several.   Their
ages are not young or old, for they are daughters each of the other.   All of them are older than you, and have
children.   There is one, the youngest of
the Matriarch line, who is but twice your age.   You haven’t met her, yet you would know her surely, so closely does she
resemble her grandmother.”  
    Gan turned
toward the erect figure of Celys ahead.   “Her grandmother!   A grandmother, that one
ahead?” He said it with a kind of dismayed awe.  
    Aphele
nodded, her eyes pitying, her lips twisted in a kind of sad smile.   “That is why I tried to tell you, a love such
as I offer you is at least less confusing than that
which you are bent on pursuing.   There is
but one of me, and I am not too proud to say you are a man above men, and above
most women I have known.   Now I leave you
to your thoughts.”  
    She rode
ahead, to pause beside the stiff, slender figure of Celys.   Gan burned with curiosity to hear what they
were saying, and if it concerned him.   He
knew that if he saw them laugh, he would feel like a fool.   Just then the two women laughed and glanced
back at him and he felt like a fool.  

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 
    AT LAST
the long and arduous trip in the saddle came to an end and they came to the
hidden valley of Avalaon.   It was a
place of trees, tremendous in size.   Cedars or redwoods, or some relative of the conifers, towered in aged
splendor toward the sky, rich in foliage and mighty in trunk.   That there was a city beneath the trees would
have been indistinguishable from the air, and Gan could see that great care had
been taken to have no trails or roads leading into the valley.   The mouth of the valley was a hilly pass,
also heavily wooded, and it could have been defended by one man with an
automatic rifle, as the sides were precipitous.  
    Winding
down the faintly worn pathways into the dim depths of the wooded valley, Gan
did not expect to find any great number of people or any structures, but he was
surprised to find the flourishing city whose extent was difficult to estimate,
so the forest growth obscured the vistas.   The dwellings were built beneath the trees; several small streams wound
about through them and joined in a river that seemed to end in a lake in the
center of the valley.   The houses were of
stone, permanent and old-looking , as if they had been
there undisturbed for centuries.   But
they were lived in, for figures moved along the paths beneath the trees carrying
burdens of food or clothing or small cases of metal articles.  
    Aphele
dismounted as they reached the first of these hidden dwellings, and came back
to Gan, holding the mort’s head as he dismounted.  
    “How is
your backside?” she asked, smiling.  
    “I am more
conscious of its presence than ever before,” grinned Gan, bending and stretching.  
    “You are
now in a place never before