The Snow Queen Part 35

"Sure he was." Jerusha unhooked the binders from her belt, said very softly, "That's the biggest crock I ever heard. Fortunately I choose to believe it, for Gundhalinu's sake." She saw the girl's marked throat, remembering abruptly that she was a sibyl. Jerusha lowered her hands with the binders toward her belt again, grudgingly. "I suppose these aren't necessary, sibyl. But you didn't come here to tell me that. Why the h.e.l.l did you come?"

Moon smiled briefly, ironically; the expression looked alien on her face. She stopped smiling. "I came because the Queen wants to cause a plague to kill all the Summers in the city, and I know who's going to start it."

"You're too late." Jerusha grinned with self-satisfied triumph, until she saw Moon's reaction. "No a" I mean we've already stopped it. We've got the guilty parties, they're our permanent guests right now." She gestured toward the lockup, mellowing in the warmth of fortune's smile.

"Already? It's over? They didn'ta"" Moon glanced over her shoulder at the station entrance. She looked back at Jerusha again, stricken, abruptly realizing that she had sacrificed her freedom for nothing.

"They didn't. The Summers are safe. Arienrhod has failed, and she's under house arrest. She won't get away from your Lady." A pa.s.sing patrolman called congratulations to her; she nodded.

Moon's face twitched as though she didn't know what to feel, as though there were more layers to the knowledge than even she could penetrate. "How ... how did you find out?" wearily.

"By chance; with unintentional cooperation froma"" She turned to Tor Starhiker, eavesdropping behind her.

"Hey, kid," Tor raised a hand, and Moon blinked with recognition. "Hey, Pollux, come here!"

"Persipone?" Moon half frowned at Tor's un glamorized face, still only half-sure. She looked past her as the pol rob came toward them.

"What's she under arrest for?" Tor jerked a thumb at Moon, indignantly, a little too impressed with her own role as key witness. "It's not against the law to impersonate the Queen, is it? Not your laws, anyhow."

"That depends on how well you do it," Jerusha said. She s.h.i.+fted her weight from one foot to the other. "You know each other?"

"Since today. That seems like forever." Tor shook her head, strained for a smile. "Look what she's done to your hairdo, Polly... So what happened, cousin? Did you find him? Did you get him out of the palace? Did you see the Queen a" did she see you?"

"You were in the palace?" Jerusha demanded. The clear wall of official accusation turned the girl into a prisoner again. "To meet the Queena""

Moon felt the change, and defiance beat back at her. "To find my cousin!" She glanced quickly at Tor, nodded, blus.h.i.+ng. "You know what... who I am, don't you, Commander?"

Jerusha nodded, keeping her distance mentally. "I've known for a long time." Tor looked blank beside her.

"So has everyone; except me," Moon murmured bitterly. "I was the last to know."

"I still don't know," Tor said.

"Did Gundhalinu tell you?"

"No, Arienrhod did." Moon twisted a strand of hah.

Jerusha started. "You saw her?"

"Yes," almost a whisper. "She wanted me with her to share ... everything. Even Sparks," coldly. Moon reddened again; angry, not ashamed. "She wanted me to forget that I'm pledged to him; forget that I'm a Summer; forget that I'm a sibyl. And when I wouldn't forget, she tried to kill me." The bitterness increased a magnitude. Jerusha frowned as her own surprise deepened. Moon rubbed her eyes, swaying where she stood; Jerusha remembered all that she had been through, and how much of it had been for Gundhalinu's sake. "Sit down. Pollux, bring us some tea." Jerusha dismissed the waiting guard, touched Moon's elbow, turning her toward the seat along the wall. Moon looked surprise at her; Jerusha felt a twinge of surprise at herself. Pollux moved away obediently through the trajectories of official activity. Tor included herself in the rest of the invitation: "Get me a refill, Polly."

"You said Arienrhod tried to kill you?" Jerusha sat down.

Moon dropped heavily onto the seat, a little away from her; Tor stretched out fluidly at the bench's end. "She told the n.o.bles I was a sibyl, and they tried to throw me into the Pit."

Tor sat up straight, speechless for once.

"Her own clone?" Jerusha felt her incredulity fade even as she said it. Yes, that's the Arienrhod I know. No compet.i.tion.

"I'm not Arienrhod!" Moon's voice shook with denial. "I'm wearing her face, that's all." She pulled a hand down over her own, her fingers clawing, as though she wanted to strip it off. "And she knows it."

Pollux returned and pa.s.sed around tea with the silent propriety of a butler. Jerusha took a sip from her bowl, letting the scalding heat rise inside her head. It could be a trick, another trick, her coming here. But for the life of her she couldn't imagine what purpose could lie behind it.

"They tried to throw you in the Pit?" Tor prodded, staring at Moon's throat. "What happened?"

"It wasn't hungry." Moon drank her tea, a strange emotion moving across her face. Tor looked pained. "BZ a" Inspector Gundhalinu came in with the Summers and made them let me go."

"You mean that fis.h.i.+ng pole with you was a real Blue?" Tor asked.

"He was once." Jerusha rested her heavy-helmeted head against the wall. "I hope he will be again."

"He never stopped wanting to be anything else," Moon said quietly. "Don't let him give it up, and throw everything away. Don't let him blame himself for what happened." She gulped tea.

"I can't keep him from doing that." Jerusha shook her head. "But I'll make sure no one else blames him for it." I can save his career; but I can't save him from himself ... or from you. "Tell me," her resentment crystallized into accusation, "by all the G.o.ds, what do you see in Starbuck, that b.l.o.o.d.y genocidea""

"Sparks isn't Starbuck ... not any more." Moon set her empty cup down on the bench, rattling it as the genocide registered. "And i he never knew about the mers. But you do." (I From you. Jerusha glanced away abruptly. "Yes. Your friend Ngenet a" told me the truth about them." My friend Ngenet ... who ', I'll trusted you, and trusted me to know about you.

"Ngenet?" Moon shook her own head, rubbed her face again. "You must have known it before. Any sibyl knows the truth, you can't deny that," including the whole of the Hegemony in the accusation. "You want to punish Sparks for killing mers on off worlder land a" for splattering blood on you while you stand and watch them die, with your hands out begging for the water of life! And you want to punish me for knowing the truth a" that you're punis.h.i.+ng my world for your own guilt." Tor sat listening with wide ears, but Jerusha made no move to get rid of her. She made no move even to answer, cupping the Hegemonic seal of her belt buckle with cold fingers; Moon watched her intently through the long moment. Jerusha frowned. "I don't make the laws. I just enforce them." Wis.h.i.+ng, as she said it, that she hadn't said that much.

Disappointment showed in Moon's eyes, but she didn't press the argument. "Sparks isn't Starbuck! He wasn't Starbuck in Summer; and there won't be a Starbuck any more, when Winter's gone. Arienrhod did it to him, and he only let her do it because a" because she was so like me." Moon glanced away. Jerusha felt a pang of sympathy at the girl's sudden shame and confusion. She stared at the trefoil tattoo. "Sparks was the one who told me about the Queen's plot. He was coming here when she caught us a" he didn't care what you did to him, or me, as long as you kept our people from dying." She looked up.

"If he wants to make up for the last five years, it'll take more than that. It'll take him the rest of his life." Jerusha tasted venom.

"Do you hate him that much?" Moon frowned. "Why? What did he ever do to you?"

"Listen, Moon," Tor said. "Everybody in Carbuncle has a reason to hate either Sparks Dawntreader or Starbuck. And that includes me."

"Then you gave him a reason to hate you."

Jerusha looked away. "He repaid us all a hundred times over."

Moon leaned forward. "But at least you owe him a chance to prove he doesn't belong to the Queen now. He knows everything about the Source's plan a" couldn't he testify for you? He knows other things about the Source, things you could usea""

"Like what?" interested in spite of herself.

"What happened to the former Commander of Police? He was poisoned, wasn't he?"

Jerusha felt her mouth fall open. "The Source did it?"

"For the Queen." Moon nodded.

"G.o.ds ... oh, G.o.ds, I'd like to get that on tape!" With a spare to play every night, to sing me to sleep.

"Enough to drop the charges against us?"

Jerusha refocused on Moon, saw determination running swift and deep in her strange eyes; realized suddenly that she had been led blindfolded to this point a" that the girl was still fighting for her lover's life, and her own. You've learned the rules of civilization well, girl. Resentment struggled inside her, died stillborn. She looked at the trefoil tattoo again. h.e.l.l and devils, how long can I go on hating her face, when there's no proof she ever deserved to be born with it?

"Will you let me go and bring him here?" Moon half rose, antic.i.p.ating her surrender.

"It may not be that easy."

Moon sat down again, her body taut. "Why not?"

"I let it be known all up and down the Street that Sparks was Starbuck, when I learned about it. The Summers must already know who he is." And I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't know that I wanted it to happen that way. "They won't let him leave the palace now."

"He was supposed to be all right! That's the only reason I left him there!" Moon cried her betrayal to the air; faces turned to stare at her across the room. Her eyes glazed suddenly, vacant windows. Jerusha edged away from her, away from contamination. "No, no!" Moon's hands clenched into fists. "You can't use him and let him die! I did it all for him a" you know that's why I came here. Not for you, not for the Change... I don't care about the Change, if it means he has to die!" It had the sound of a threat. "Sparks isn't going to die tomorrowa""

"Someone has to," Jerusha said uncomfortably, uncertainly, trying to pull her back into the real world. "I know he's your lover, sibyl-but the Change is bigger than any one person's wants or needs. The Change ritual is sacred; if the Sea Mother doesn't get her consort, there'll be h.e.l.l to pay from the crowds that came to see it. Starbuck has to die." "Starbuck has to die." Moon echoed it, getting slowly to her feet. "I know. I know he does." She put her hand to her head, her face j:! drawing pain, as though she struggled against some compulsion. "But Sparks doesn't! Commander." She turned back, her face still strained. "Will you help me find First Secretary Sirus? He promised me," she smiled suddenly, sardonically, "that if there was anything he could do himself to help his son, he'd do it. And he will." "I can contact him." Jerusha nodded. "But I want to know why." "I have to see someone, first." Moon's determination faltered. "Then I'll tell you, and you can tell him. Persipone, where's Herne now?"

Tor raised her eyebrows. "Back at the casino, I expect-By all the G.o.ds," with a kind of wonder, "I think 7 finally understand something in this conversation." She grinned congenially at Jerusha. "Eat your heart out, Blue."

Chapter 47.

Jerusha lay sprawled on the low couch in the den of her townhouse, one foot hanging, tethering her to the floor, or I might just float up to the ceiling. She smiled, watching the past day's events replay again on the inside of her eyelids; listening with half an ear to the noisy celebration out in the alley, and letting herself believe that it was all for her. Well, h.e.l.l, at least half of it ought to be. She loosened the seal of her uniform tunic a little further. For once she had not taken it off immediately when she got home ... for once it felt too good to be a Blue, and the Commander of Police.

She heard Moon Dawntreader moan and sigh in her sleep in one of the darkened spare rooms. Even as tired as the girl must be, she didn't rest well in this place either. Jerusha had not slept at all, and another day had begun already, somewhere beyond the time-stopping walls of the city. But it didn't matter; hi another few days shed be gone from this place forever. And for once she didn't mind reliving over and over the day just past, or antic.i.p.ating the new one to come: There was a message on her recorder asking a" not ordering, asking a" her to a meeting with the Chief Justice and members of the a.s.sembly. After breaking up Arienrhod's plot and capturing C'sunh, after making the Source too hot for any world ... after all that, her black-and-blue career was alive and well again, and so was she.

Then what was she doing with a criminal asleep hi her guest room? She sighed. By the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Boatman, the girl was no more a ; criminal than she was. And no more Arienrhod than she was. Who cared if Moon had seditious thoughts about the Hegemony? Gundhalinu was right a" what could she do about them, once the off worlders were gone? And although she wanted to deny it even to herself, the memory of the mers and what the girl had said about punishment and guilt still gnawed at her like an ulcer. Because it was true a" it was, and she would never be able to deny that again, or deny the hypocrisy of the government she served. Well, d.a.m.n it, what government was ever perfect? She had stopped Arienrhod, and she could tell herself that looking the other way about Moon was her payment of conscience to Tiamat's future. She could even let it go for Sparks, let him be Moon's grief, if he delivered the testimony she wanted. And if she let him go, her conscience d.a.m.n well ought to be clear forever... But she knew it wouldn't be. She had seen too many things she should never have seen here, and had too many people she had tried to categorize slip out of her psychological shackles and overcome her resistance. Some of my best friends are felons.

She smiled painfully, pinched by sudden regret. Miroe ... good.. bye, Miroe. She had not heard from him since that last death-cursed day they stood together on the b.l.o.o.d.y beach... But that's no good-bye. Not remembering that scene. She sat up on the couch, shaking out cobwebs. No a" I can tell him that I've found Moon, that she's all right, and that Arienrhod is going to pay. Yes, she should call him now, while she had the time, before they cut communications, before it was too late. Call him, Jerusha, and tell him goodbye.

She got up, moved stiffly across the room to the phone, unexpected flutterings in the pit of her stomach, as though she had swallowed moths. She punched in the code, cursing the adolescent attack of nerves under her breath as she waited for the call to go through.

"h.e.l.lo? Ngenet Plantation here." The voice was absolutely clear, for the first time she could ever remember. It was a woman's voice; Jerusha heard the coldness come into her own: "This is Commander PalaThion calling. Let me speak to Ngenet."

"I'm sorry, Commander, he's gone."

"Gone? Gone where?" d.a.m.n it, he can't be smuggling now!

"He didn't say, Commander." The woman sounded more embarra.s.sed than conspiratorial. "He's had a lot on his mind lately-we've all been getting ready for the Change here. He went on board his boat a few days ago and left. He didn't tell anyone why."

"I see." Jerusha exhaled gradually.

"Is there any message?"

"Yes. Three things: Moon is safe. Arienrhod will pay. And tell him I a" tell him I said goodbye."

The woman repeated the message carefully. "I'll tell him. A good voyage to you, Commander."

Jerusha glanced down, glad that her face didn't show. "Thank you. And good fortune to all of you." She switched off the speaker and turned away from it a" seeing the sh.e.l.l on the shrine table by the door, still sitting where it always had, its broken spines a mute testimony to what had been, and was not to be. It's better this way ... better that he was gone. But her eyes were hot and br.i.m.m.i.n.g suddenly; she did not blink until the reservoir of tears subsided, so that none escaped her control.

She turned back to the phone, changing the subject with an effort of will. Gundhalinu ... should she call again about him? But she had already called the city medical center twice, and they had told her the same thing: He was delirious, she couldn't talk to him. They didn't know how he'd managed to stay on his feet, the shape he was in, as sick as he was; but they didn't expect it would kill him. Rea.s.suring. She grimaced, leaning against the wall. Well, maybe by the time she got back from the meeting with the Chief Justice... Yes, shed have everything to tell him, then. And in the meantime shed better wash up and get back to headquarters again before it was time for her audience.

She pulled a pack of iestas out of her pocket, went into the bathroom to wash up and change. Moon slept on, restlessly, exhaustion setting her free from her fears about whether Sirus would get her cousin out of the palace. Jerusha still could not really believe that the First Secretary of the Hegemonic a.s.sembly had ever agreed to attempt such a thing, even if Sparks Dawntreader was his son a" a son he had never seen, and could hardly be sure was even his. But he had come willingly to meet with Moon, and he had gone away willing to try.

More inexplicable to her was how Moon had gotten the crippled Kharemoughi bartender from Persipone's to agree to take Sparks's place. G.o.ds, the girl had barely been in the city two days! If she really believed Moon's personal magnetism was enough to make men willing to die for her, shed lock that kid up so fast her head would spin a" But there had been undercurrents in the conversation between the girl and the two men that told her there was more to Herne's going than just the way he looked at Moon ... and one glance at his legs gave her a good reason. In her own private judgment Herne looked like a man the Hegemony would be better off without; and in any case, she had asked no questions, for fear of getting an answer she couldn't ignore.

Jerusha heard someone stirring in the next room, looked out the refinished the doorway to see Moon stumble foggily into the hall. "You might as well go back to bed, sibyl. Time pa.s.ses faster when you aren't watching it. For better or worse, Sirus won't be back for a while yet."

"I know." Moon rubbed her sleep-blurred face, shook her head. "But I have to get ready if I'm going to run hi the race." Her head came up, and her eyes were not soft with sleep.

Jerusha blinked. "The Summer Queen's race? You?"

Moon nodded, daring her to try to stop it. "I have to. I came here to win the race."

Jerusha felt someone step on her grave. "I thought you came for your cousin Sparks."

"So did I." Moon looked down. "It lied to me. It never meant for me to save him; it only used him, to make me follow its plan. But it can't keep me from trying to save him anyway... And I can't I keep it from making me Queen."

Millennium come. Jerusha breathed unspoken relief, felt her pity stir. G.o.ds, it's true a" sibyls are a little crazy. No wonder Arienrhod didn't want her after all. "I appreciate your being honest about it with me." She pulled a fresh tunic on over her damp skin, and sealed it up the front. "I won't stop you if you want to try." But if you win, don't tell me; I don't want to know.

Chapter 48.

Moon would not have believed it was possible to clear a s.p.a.ce as long as her arm and keep it clear for even a moment in the quicksand s.h.i.+fting of the Festival mobs. But somehow order had been created out of chaos; somewhere in the seemingly formless super ent.i.ty that was the Festival an underlying structure existed. A course had been cleared along the Street's upper reaches for a mile below the palace, and eager spectators lined the way like the elegant townhouse walls at their backs. Most who had a viewing place had been holding it for hours, and the Blues who patrolled casually up and down before them had little trouble keeping them there. They had come to watch the beginning of the end, the first of the ancient ceremonies of the Change: the footrace that would thin the numbers of the women who had come to compete for the mask of the Summer Queen.

Moon had come out into the Street as soon as the nucleus of Summer women began to form around an elder of the Goodventure family, who carried in her the blood of Tiamat's last line of Summer Queens. Members of that family were forbidden to become Queen at this Change, but instead bore the honored responsibility of seeing that its rituals were faithfully preserved and carried out. She had pulled a colored ribbon from one of their sacks to tie around her head a" the ribbon that would give her a place at the front, middle, or back of the starting ma.s.s. The band she drew was grew, the sea: the color that put her in the front, ahead of brown for the land, blue for the sky. She tied the ribbon across her forehead, her face paley expressionless against the triumph and the disappointment around her. Of course it had been green ... how could it not be? But a tension born of certainty wrapped her, tightening like tentacles; she pushed toward the front of the forming field of runners to escape it.

She looked around her as she struggled to hold a new equilibrium in the jostling mob of colored ribbons and eager Summer faces... in this crowd of strangers. Most of the women who had come to the Festival intending to run in the Summer Queen's choosing had brought with them traditional-style holiday garments: soft wool s.h.i.+rts and trousers dyed sea-green, summer-green, to please the Lady. They were all elaborately sewn with designs made of sh.e.l.l and bead and traders' baubles, ribbons that dangled fetishes of their family totems. But she wore the nomad's tunic she had brought back with her from Persipone's, the only clothing she owned, its gaudy color as alien as she suddenly felt herself, among the people who should have been her own. She had covered her hair with a scarf, to hide her resemblance to the Queen. Some of the Summers had chala" I lenged her right to run because she wore no totem or proof that she was even a Summer. But then she had shown them her throat, and they had backed away. She felt the irony of wearing a Winter's clothes today, and not ones that were rightfully hers; and yet somehow it was appropriate.

She had not seen anyone she knew, either among the runners or in the crowd of spectators beyond. Even though she knew that she I could hardly expect to find anyone from Neith or its few island neighbors hi these hundreds, in the thousands that filled Carbuncle, still she searched, and was disappointed. The sights and the sounds and the smells of her home surrounded her here; but her grandmother was far too old to make this voyage, and her mother a" "Festivals are for the young," her mother had said to her once, with pride and longing, "who don't have s.h.i.+ps to tend and mouths to feed. I had my Festival; and I hold the precious memory of it close beside me every day." Her arm had gone around her daughter's shoulders, steadying her on the rolling deck...

Moon whimpered, seeing the ugly truth hidden hi her mother's merry begotten memory. The woman next to her apologized and edged nervously away. Moon looked down at herself as the half'," fearful sibyl-s.p.a.ce opened around her again; suddenly glad that her mother had not come, would not watch her in the race today, what-ever its outcome was. Her mother and Gran must think she was dead, and Sparks, too, by now; and maybe it was better that way. Their time of mourning must be long past. Was it better never to let them know the truth, or to always be afraid that once they had i. learned part of it they would somehow learn the whole, terrible truth about their children? She swallowed her grief, choking on it, turned her vision outward again.

She was not her mother's child ... and not Arienrhod's, either. Then what am I doing here? She looked around her in sudden doubt. She was the only sibyl she had seen here anywhere. Was she the only sibyl among all the Summer people who wanted to compete? Was it really the Queen's ambition running in her blood that made her want to be a queen herself? No, I didn't ask for this! There must be a change; I am only a vessel. Her fists tightened as she repeated the vow. If no other sibyl ran in this race, maybe it was only because none of them knew the truth.

None of them know. She could read on the faces around her the spectrum of motives and gradations of desire that had brought the runners here: some of them hungry for the power (although the power of a Summer Queen had always been more ritual than secular), some for the honor, and some for the easy life of being wors.h.i.+ped as the Lady incarnate; some simply for the sheer joy of competing, a part of their celebration, with no cares at all about winning or losing. And none of them knows why it really matters, except me.

She kept her fists tight as tension wound its springs inside her, pushed forward again until she could just see the piece of weighted ribbon that marked the course's start. The Goodventure elder was shouting for quiet and announcing the rules. She did not have to be the first in this race, she only had to be among the sacred first thirty three a" and the course wasn't long, it was meant to give some besides the strongest a chance. But there were a hundred women behind her, two hundred more ... she couldn't even see them all from where she stood.

The voice of the Goodventure elder called them all to the mark, and Moon felt her self-awareness slipping, caught in the swell of many moving forward as one. Through a gap between heads and arms she watched the fragile bunting that held back their tide a" saw it fall at a signal. The ma.s.s of runners surged, sending her forward, helpless to resist if she had wanted to, and the race of the Summer Queen began.

She danced like a reef spotter through the first hundred yards, needing all her concentration just to keep on her feet in the crush before the knot of bodies began to loosen. As s.p.a.ces opened she broke between, not always easily, feeling elbows bruise her sides in retribution. She couldn't keep track of how many were ahead in the s.h.i.+fting field; she could only weave and spring and try to put as many of them behind her as her feet could overtake.

A mile was nothing, a mile was hardly enough to quicken her heartbeat when she and Sparks had raced along the endless gleaming beachs of Neith... But this mile ran uphill, on hard pavement, not yielding sand. Before she had reached halfway her breath rasped in her throat and her body protested with every jarring step. She tried to remember how long it had really been since she had run on that s.h.i.+ning sand; couldn't even remember how long it had been since shed had enough food or sleep to satisfy the body of a bird. d.a.m.n Carbuncle! There were only a dozen women ahead of her, but they were slowly gaming ground. New runners began to come up on her and pa.s.s her from behind. She saw with a kind of dread that one of them wore a brown ribbon, not green a" the second group of runners was overtaking the first starters; and she stumbled as her mind left her straining legs unguided.

Two thirds of a mile, three quarters, and there were more pa.s.sing her all the time, easily thirty ahead of her now, and a cramp hi her side that took her breath away. They're pa.s.sing me ... and they don't know, they don't even know what they're reaching for! Reaching after it with the last of her strength, she saw the final distance hurtle past; suspended all other awareness until the white stone courtyard of the Winter palace was under her feet, and the next-to-last winter's garland had fallen around her shoulders.