Free Beasts of Antares by Alan Burt Akers

knew just how he felt. I had to turn away from Strom Vinsanzo with a small word of apology.
    Delia, with a graceful gesture and her sweet smile, disengaged herself from the group chattering about her. She walked across to me quickly.
    “Dray! You look—”
    “Aye. I look the ugly old savage I am.”
    “Agreed. And the specific?”
    “Look at Mileon, there, and old Nomile! I was thinking of Drak, and Zeg, and Jaidur, and—”
    “Our three sons make their marks on the world.”
    “They do. By Zair, but I am proud of them, all of them!”
    “I have been thinking that you ought to know what I’ve been up to in that direction since you went away.”
    We kept our voices low and we walked together along the terrace, past the serried columns, and the dancers took no notice of us, as was proper.
    “And, too,” I went on, and I know my voice was troubled, “I am thinking of our daughters. You know the wild she-cat Dayra has become, with her whip and her claw and her black leathers. Jilian, who is much the same, refuses to help because of her vows—”
    “And so she should!”
    “Aye. You Sisters of the Rose have more secrets than an army of bungling men.” I could feel Delia’s hand on my arm, a reassuring and invigorating feeling, and that firm hand did not tremble by so much as a spider’s eyelash. “And there is Velia and Didi, and they will soon grow big enough to bring more headaches—”
    “And Lela?”
    I sighed. “Lela. I have not seen her since I came back from my long banishment on Earth. I — it is damned hard, my love, damned hard, when a crusty old father feels his eldest daughter refuses to come to see him—”
    “She does not refuse!” Delia’s tones were sharp, a rebuke.
    “I know, I know. She is busy with the Sisters of the Rose. But you girls of the SoR work her too hard.”
    “Now if Jilian Sweet-tooth had been our daughter—”
    I stopped. “So that is her name!”
    “No. Sweet-tooth is what we call her.”
    “She is ready enough to talk about her banje shop, but not anything about the things we really want to know — no. About the things I really want to know.”
    “I do not press for your secrets of the Krozairs of Zy.”
    This was familiar territory. We were a partnership, a twinned one, Delia and I. And we each had our own inner lives, and mostly we shared everything. But there remained these spaces between us that were not empty, distant, repellent but were spaces filled with the light of love.
    Then, and Delia astonished me profoundly, she went on to say that she had arranged for our daughters to visit the River Zelph, in far Aphrasöe, and there bathe in the sacred pool of baptism. I turned her to face me. I looked down into her gorgeous face and I saw the love and the pride in our children there, and the defiance — and a little hint of furtiveness?
    “Furtive you should be, Delia of Delphond! By Zim-Zair! You take our girls there, all those perils — the mortal danger — why — why—”
    “Yes! And this explains where I and the girls have been. Your explanations of where you have been involve your funny little world with only one tiny yellow sun, and one silver moon, and only apims to flesh the world with color and not a single diff anywhere in sight! I think your story far stranger than mine!”
    “But the dangers—”
    I could feel myself shaking. We had bathed in the sacred pool of baptism, and were thereby assured of a thousand years of life, and our wounds would heal with miraculous swiftness. But the Savanti nal Aphrasöe guarded the pool. There were monsters. I had gone through some parlous times there. And now Delia was calmly telling me...!
    Well, when I’d calmed down, I saw the rightness of it. Truth to tell, it solved a problem that had been bothering me.
    “But that does not explain where Lela is gone to now,” I said.
    “No. I hope she will not be much longer. She is devoted, to Vallia, to the SoR, to her family—” said