The Snow Queen Part 26

"I did." Moon nodded, surprised at the calmness of the words. "I infected him."

Blodwed's mouth fell open. "Is he dead?"

"No. But when he wakes up tomorrow he'll a" he'll start to go mad. Madder." Moon swallowed suddenly.

Blodwed looked down into Taryd Roh's slack face. She glanced up again, her own face filling with a strange mixture of emotions, anger slowly separating and rising. She reached inside her parka, took out her stunner and adjusted the dial. She leaned down and put the muzzle close to his temple. "No he won't." She pressed the stud; his body jerked.

Moon flinched, felt Gundhalinu stiffen beside her. But she felt no pity, or remorse.

"Good riddance." Blodwed stuck the gun away. "I told him he'd be sorry if he tried to hurt you." She lifted her head, looked back at them with something deeper than possessiveness, and stronger than frustration. "d.a.m.n you, now you really did it! When Ma finds out what happened she'll want you skinned alive; and she gets what she wants around here, I can't stop it. Everybody thinks she's holy, but really she's just crazy." She wiped her nose. "All right! All right, don't look at me like that! I'm going to let you go."

Moon swayed as reaction caught her, and slid down to her knees.

The carnivorous predawn cold gnawed Moon, even through the insulated clothing, the gray-brown woolen mask pulled down over her face. The stars crackled on the black dome of sky, the snow lay silvered under a gibbous moon beyond the gaping cavern mouth. "I never saw such a beautiful night."

"Nor I. Not on any world." Gundhalinu s.h.i.+fted beneath the thermal blankets, among the lashed-on supplies at the front of the loaded snow skimmer "And I never will again, if I live until the New Millennium." He took a deep breath, coughed rac kingly as the frigid air a.s.saulted his healing lungs.

"Shut up, will you?" Blodwed reappeared beside them for a last time. "You want to wake up the whole camp? Here." She thrust something into Gundhalinu's lap; Moon recognized three small carrying cages. "Take these back to the star port They're sick. I can't keep them here." Her voice was as tight as a clenched fist. Gundhalinu worked the cages in under the blankets beside him.

Blodwed moved away to the other animal cages she had piled by the cave entrance. She picked up the first one, unfastening the lock. "And I'm dumping all these d.a.m.n wild ones, they don't even like you," defiantly. Gray-winged birds fluttered out, tumbled astonished to the ground. They picked themselves up from the snow and flew away, crying their freedom. She jerked open a second cage; white furred conics leaped out in a ma.s.s, tumbling over their snowshoe feet, and bounded into the moonlight making no sound at all.

She opened the last cage, shook it; the elf fox cub rolled out, spitting its indignation. She pushed it with her foot out into the snow. "Go on, d.a.m.n it!" The cub sat bleating in confusion, its silver-limned fur standing on end; picked itself up again, shuddering, and struggled back toward warmth and shelter. It found Blodwed's foot hi its way, crawled up onto the fur-and-leather of her boot, whimpering.

Blodwed swore, bent down to pick it up. "All right, then ..." her voice cracked. "I'm keeping the rest!" She looked back at Moon. "But I know how to keep them better now. They'll want to stay with me."

Moon nodded, not trusting her own voice.

"I guess you got everything." Blodwed stroked the cub's head selfconsciously. "Even the distance-finder. You better hope you fixed it right, Blue." "What are you going to do now?" Gundhalinu said. "When you don't have anybody to fix these things a" or any way to get more? You've forgotten how to live like real herders and hunters any more-like anything besides parasites."

"I haven't." Blodwed tossed her head. "I know the old ways too. Ma's not going to live forever, no matter what she thinks. I can take care of myself a" and everybody else, once I'm in charge. I don't need you, foreigner!" She rubbed her eyes. "Or you." She threw her arms around Moon suddenly. "So you better get out of here. You better go find him, before it's too late!"

Moon hugged her, all wrongs forgotten, all forgiven; felt the elf fox squirm between them. "I will!"

Together they pushed the sledge out onto the open snow, and Moon settled behind the controls. She started the power unit, following Gundhalinu's grudgingly surrendered instructions.

"Hey, Blodwed." Gundhalinu twisted to look over his shoulder at her. "Here." He tossed her the battered novel. "I don't expect I'll ever want to read that again." He didn't smile.

"I can't read it either, it's in your language!"

"That's never stopped you before."

"Get out of here, d.a.m.n you." She waved the book like a threat; but Moon saw her smile.

Moon switched on the headlamp, and they began the final journey northward.

Chapter 34.

Arienrhod sat enthroned in the audience hall, where before another fortnight had pa.s.sed she would be receiving the Prime Minister of the entire Hegemony on his last official visit. She wondered idly whether he would pity her. But today it was merely the Commander of Police, and it did not require much imagination to guess the reason for her visit. It must be a sign of how well Starbuck had succeeded that PalaThion had come here herself.

PalaThion left her escort among the gossiping n.o.bles at the far side of the hall, presumably so the two men would not be required to kneel. She was no longer willing to kneel herself, now that she had become Commander a" a small victory she had won, the only one. Arienrhod smiled to herself as PalaThion removed her helmet and bowed formally before her. "Your Majesty."

"Commander PalaThion. You look terrible, Commander a" you must be working too hard. Your people's departure from Tiamat isn't the end of the world, you know. You should take care of yourself, or you'll be old before your time."

PalaThion looked up at her with ill-concealed hatred, and barely detectable despair. "There are worse things than growing old, Your Majesty." "I can't imagine one." She leaned back. "To what do I owe this visit, Commander?"

"Two things which I consider worse, Your Majesty: murder, and the illegal slaughter of mers." She sounded as though she believed there shouldn't be any distinction. "I've come with a warrant for the arrest of Starbuck, on charges of murder and of killing mers on land belonging to an off worlder named Ngenet. He has forbidden the Hunt on his plantation, as you know." Her eyes snapped with accusation.

Arienrhod raised her eyebrows, not entirely feigning surprise. "Murder? There must be some mistake, some other explanation."

"I saw one body myself. And the bodies of the mers." PalaThion blinked as the memory came back to her, and her mouth pulled down. "There was no mistake, and there's no other explanation. I want Starbuck, and I want him now ... Your Majesty."

"Of course, Commander. I want to question him about the charges myself." She had not learned any more about Moon's fleeting reappearance in the short time since it had happened. But nowa" "Sparks!" She looked away across the whiteness of the room, to where he stood among the n.o.bles who had been displaying their Festival costumes for her perusal. With the resourcefulness of the rich, they had already managed to claim the most beautiful and elaborate specimens of the mask makers art, and had costumes designed to match. They stood together like a gathering of beautifully misbegotten beasts, their mutant totem-faces gazing at her impa.s.sively, creatures out of a drug fantasy.

Sparks came quickly at her call. She watched him move, seeing how his blue sleeveless jerkin and tight-fitting pants accentuated the litheness of his movement. But his expression was a false face, his listless mourning made him as much of a stranger as any festival mask. He kneeled before her with silent subservience, ignoring PalaThion utterly. She was not certain whether his rudeness was calculated or only guilty; knowing that he felt guilt toward the woman but never understanding why. "Yes, Your Majesty." He looked up.

She gestured for him to rise. "Where is Starbuck, Sparks?"

He gaped at her, recovered himself hastily. "I a" uh, I don't know, Your Majesty. He's left the palace. He didn't tell me when he'd be back." He showed her a sardonic hidden smile, and his curiosity. "He doesn't talk to me."

"Commander PalaThion has come to arrest him for murder."

"For murder?" Sparks turned to PalaThion.

Poison showed in PalaThion's eyes as she looked back at him; the poison was still there as she lifted her head again. "How very well he timed that."

"Come now, Commander," irritably. "Do you think I'm a mind reader? And I don't condone murder among my subjects." PalaThion's expression said that she wouldn't be surprised at either one. "I want to know more about this. You said you saw the bodies yourself? Whose bodies?"

"I saw one body a" if you don't include the corpses of the mers." PalaThion swallowed, as though it was more to her than simply an unpleasant memory. Sparks toyed with the agates at his belt ends, striking them against his thigh like a whip, grimacing at each blow. "It was the body of a dillyp."

"A Hound!" She couldn't keep the disdain out of her relief.

"No, Your Majesty," coldly. "A dillyp. A free citizen of the Hegemony, a guest of Citizen Ngenet. He had been stabbed. According to Ngenet another of his guests was missing, and she is also presumed to be dead. She was a citizen of this world, a Summer woman named Moon Dawntreader. The mer bodies had been mutilated." She made it as ugly as she could.

"Mutilated?" Sparks said, too loudly.

Arienrhod felt the spotlight of PalaThion's gaze on her as she spoke Moon's name: She suspects. But she was prepared for this, and she kept her polite disgust unchanging. "The name is vaguely familiar to me... Is she a relative of yours, Sparks?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." One hand closed over his other wrist; Arienrhod saw his nails bite into his flesh. "If you remember, she was a" my cousin."

"You have my condolences." She gave him no warmth.

PalaThion was watching her with something that was neither amazement nor disappointment, but some of both. "She was an illegal returnee. She disappeared about five years ago." Something grated.

"I think I recall the incident." And I thought it was the end of everything; but it wasn't.

"What do you mean, the mers were a" mutilated?" Sparks said again. "Mutilated how?"

"I have a filmed record of it at headquarters, if you enjoy that sort of thing, Dawntreader."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I didn't mean a" I want to know what happened to Moon!"

"Sparks." Arienrhod leaned forward in quiet warning. "It's his cousin, after all, Commander. Of course he's concerned about what happened." d.a.m.n him ... seeing just how concerned he was.

"They had been a" skinned, Your Majesty." PalaThion still frowned tightly.

"Skinned?" She glanced at Sparks with veiled disbelief, saw in comprehension in his eyes. "Starbuck would never do something like that. Why should he?"

"You'd know his reasons better than I would, since he's your man." PalaThion toyed with her weapons belt, coming treacherously close to arrogance. "Who else would have the resources to drown so many mers at once?"

I don't like this. I can't see far enough into it. Arienrhod probed the transparent convolutions of the throne's arm. "Well, frankly, Commander, even if he did do it, I don't see why you're so concerned. He'll be dead soon enough, when the Change comes." She shrugged with fatalistic acceptance, and a trace of smile.

"The law can't count on that, Your Majesty." PalaThion looked at her pointedly. "And besides a" that would be too easy on him."

Sparks turned back; stopped himself, running a hand through his hair.

Arienrhod felt the blood sing unexpectedly in her ears. "Speak for yourself, off worlder I suggest you concern yourself with your own fate after the Change, and leave ours to us."

"Your fate and mine are bound together, Your Majesty, since Tiamat belongs to the Hegemony." Arienrhod thought there was a subtle emphasis on belongs. But PalaThion's confidence cracked even as she made the bluff, and drove her back into her place. PalaThion knew a" yes, knew a" that Winter had plans; but she knew just as surely that she was helpless to stop them. "In any case, I want Stabuck for questioning, and I expect that you will cooperate," expecting nothing of the kind.

"I'll do what I can to get this unpleasantness straightened out, of course." Arienrhod untangled the free-falling collar of crystal beads that cascaded down her silver s.h.i.+rt. "But Starbuck is his own man, he comes and goes as he pleases. I don't know when see him next."

PalaThion's mouth twisted skeptically. "My men will be looking for him too. But of course it would help me more if you'd tell me his name."

Arienrhod gestured Sparks up onto the dais, stroked his bare arm with her hand. She felt it quiver as though her touch burned him with cold fire. "I'm sorry, Commander. I can't reveal his ident.i.ty to anyone; that would be a violation of trust, of the whole concept of his position. But I will keep my eyes open for him ..." She reached up to touch a lock of Sparks's hair, curled it around her finger; he only looked at her with sudden apprehension. She smiled, and he smiled, uncertain.

"I can find it out for myself. And when I do, I'll get him!" PalaThion bowed with all the appearance of propriety, and strode away.

Sparks laughed tightly, a release of tension. "Right in front of her eyes!"

Arienrhod allowed herself to join him, without any real pleasure; remembering a time when laughter was a simple thing, with its roots in joy, not pain... "What a shame she'll never appreciate what she missed." But I need to make certain of that. "Starbuck will have to wear the mask of Everyman for a while."

Sparks nodded, suddenly sober. "That's all right with me," as suddenly bitter.

"What happened on that beach?" She leaned toward him, holding him with her eyes.

"I told you everything I know, everything I saw! We killed the mers in the usual way, and we left them for Ngenet to find. We didn't do anything else." He folded his arms in front of him. "I don't know what happened after that. By'r Lady, I wish I did..." a miserable prayer of loss and longing.

She looked away from him, feeling her face pinch with an unnameable emotion. Do you? Then by all the G.o.ds, I hope you never find out!

Chapter 35.

"Lady's Eyes!" The snow skimmer slewed to a halt.

Gundhalinu echoed the m.u.f.fled curse of Moon's exasperation silently. A new stretch of bare, stony ground blocked their path up the exposed face of another hillside. He had never seen, or expected to see, the land beyond the s.p.a.ceport when it was not covered by meters of drifted snow. But Tiamat had reached orbital summer again while he had been held prisoner; and it was entering the high summer of the Change as well a" when the Twins reached the periapsis of their path around the Black Gate. The Gate's gravitational influence was increasing the solar activity of the twin suns; slowly thawing this frozen world, gradually turning the equatorial regions insufferably hot.

In the past few days, as they made their way down out of the black and silver wilderness where the bandits camped, the weather had smiled on them. The vast, s.h.i.+ning solitude had stretched a pristine carpet below the glacier-bitten volcanic peaks, beneath the flawless purity of the sky, day after day. And with every pa.s.sing day, although they journeyed northward, the temperature edged up and up toward freezing, and pa.s.sed it at the suns' zenith. Their grat.i.tude had turned to curses of frustration as more and more patches of naked stone and tundra blocked the snow skimmer way.

He crawled out from under the pile of skins and blankets, trudged to the front of the sledge and leaned down to lift the runners and the fragile underside clear. Moon threw her weight against the rear of it, and together they dragged it up the endless slope. He watched the sun-cast giants that mimicked their stumbling progress, trying to ignore the bands of red-hot metal tightening in his chest a" and the awareness that his weakness forced a girl to do all the heavy work; the awareness that she did it quite adequately alone, and without complaint.

They reached the crest of the hill, the snowy downslope, at last. He let out the breath he had been holding, and the spasm of deep coughing he had held in with it. He felt Moon come up beside him, pulling him back to his seat on the sledge.

"How much longer, BZ?" She frowned, pulling furs up under his chin again like a fretful nanny. She had no herbal medicines now, and he knew that she knew the cough was worse again.

He smiled briefly, shook his head. "Soon. Maybe another day, we'll be there." The star port Salvation. Heaven. He didn't admit that he couldn't remember now whether it had been five or six days that they had been journeying. He never let himself believe that it had been too long, or that his calculations might be wrong.

"I think we should make camp down there." Moon pointed; he saw her s.h.i.+ver as an ice-barbed lash of wind struck the spine of the hill. "The suns are setting already." She looked out across the infinity of hills falling toward the distant sea, looked up into the deepening indigo sky. "It's getting too cold for you to travel." He heard her sudden indrawn breath, louder than the wind's sigh. "BZ!"

He looked up, following her hand, not knowing what he expected, but only that it was not what he found.

Out of the blue-black zenith stars were falling. But not the broken-gla.s.s stars of this winter world a" these were the stars that shone in dreams, stars that a man would die for, the stars of empire, grandeur, glory ... the impossible made real.

"What a" what are they?" He heard in Moon's voice the awe and the dread of countless natives on seven separate worlds down through a millennium, as they witnessed what she was witnessing now.

The five stars.h.i.+ps grew against the sky with every heartbeat, the harmonies of color and intensity s.h.i.+fting and reordering as parallaxes changed, building complexity on complexity like light poured through prisms of flowing water. He watched the five s.h.i.+ps slowly realigning, moving into a cross pattern; saw the lightning-play of their cold fire spreading, coalescing, into one immense star, the sign of the Hegemony. The colors blazed with a music he could almost hear, filling the sky with all the hues, all the impossible permutations of an aurora-filled night sky on his homeworld...

"The Prime Minister? Is it the Prime Minister?" Moon's words came to him m.u.f.fled by her protective face mask, and her upraised hand.

He swallowed, and swallowed again, unable to answer.

"They're s.h.i.+ps!" She went on answering her own questions. "They're only s.h.i.+ps. How can they be real, and be so beautiful?"

"They're Kharemoughi." He might have said "the Empire"; he might have said "G.o.ds." He did not say that they were only coin s.h.i.+ps wrapped in cloaks of hologrammic projection to astound a subject world. He looked back at her, glory blind, and took her smile at face value.

"Are they?" She touched his cheek, turned back to the sky as the formation split apart again, the flames died away and embers fell to earth ... behind the hills, scarcely two ridges away. "Look!" She shook off her wonder. "That must be the star port BZ, we're almost there. We could reach it tonight." Frost clouds feathered around her cheeks. "We're on time!"

"Yes." He took a deep breath. "Plenty of time. Thank the G.o.ds."

He watched the last of the s.h.i.+ps snuff out behind the snowy hills. Tonight... "There's no need to push on tonight. One more day won't matter. Tomorrow is soon enough."

She glanced at him, surprised. "It's only a couple of hours. It's as easy as if I set up camp."

He shrugged, still looking into the distance. "Maybe so." He began to cough, smothered it behind his hand.

She put a mitten to his forehead, as though she were feeling for a fever. "The sooner you see a healer a" a medic a" the better," firmly.

"Yes, Nanny."