OCR Text |
Show XXXXII "...however, a good end is the only true beginning." from The Memoirs of Aldous Phrapp Toward evening that day. tables and blankets were spread out in the valley, the stands were filled, and Provincials and Commendium folk were watching Seljuk dancers perform a kind of gavotte. The Grendels were still perched on the overhang and by now had their heads under their wings. The JumbleDogs, on their leads, were gnawing bones in a copse of trees. A flock of red DragonGeese was grazing in a long, straggling body around the peripheries of the blankets and tables. And the small party of Zetts, freed now from the most taxing of their doctoring, were roasting a leg of YellowBison on a spit at one end of the tilting field. The celebration in progress was to be the last among the folk from both sides of the Tartars before they all drifted away to their own homelands-and left Westwick and Round Valley to recoup and restock with flora and fauna. Dr'Anya, Phrapp, Janni, and the Grant-Sheblem family were at one table and the solicitous Nell was standing quietly behind her mistress. Also with them were Brandon and Chu, newly recruited for the programming team there in the HighTartars, and Lodyan-the-Zett, who had come to say goodby to her good friend, the woman-who-writes-words. "And you will come again to the Zettian Valleys?" said Lodyan, 358 |