Power Play

Начало книги

Yanaba Maddock and Sean Shongili held hands in a darkness illuminated only by the glowing eyes of hundreds of animals and the flames of hundreds of candles. The drumming had stopped now, replaced by the sweet lapping of sliding water, the beat of many hearts and the breathing of many creatures. One pulse was louder than all the drums had been, one breath a wind that guttered and flared the candles with each respiration.

‘So how do we do it here?’ Yana whispered nervously to her love and the father of her unborn children. ‘Does the planet give me away or what?’

Sean smiled and winked, ‘No-one has that right but you, love. Let's just say that the planet acts as witness and honorary best being.’

‘…best being,’ an echo sang from the cavern walls, ‘best being…’

He stopped walking and she stopped beside him. All she knew was that they were getting married, Petaybean-style.

She'd been so busy with her new duties as Petaybee's administrator over the last two months that she hadn't had enough time to enquire as fully as she would have liked into the rite or folkways of the Petaybean marriage ceremony before it was upon her. Sean's niece, Bunny Rourke, one of Yana's chief informants on matters Petaybean, had told her that it was a special sort of latchkay with a night chant at the hotsprings. Yana had attended the break-up latchkay when she first arrived. This occasion differed in that the night chant was at the beginning of the latchkay instead of at the end. As at all latchkays, there would be much singing, although probably more at this particular one. Both Sean and Yana were to prepare a song for each other. Songs were how Petaybeans celebrated or commemorated all their most noteworthy experiences.

Читать дальше →