The Snow Queen Part 6

"a"tell a red feather from a green one?" She smiled, lifting her head to look at him with the dark windows of her eyes, and the light sensor on the band across her forehead. "Well, you know, it wasn't easy in the beginning. But I had a desire to learn a" a need to create something beautiful myself. I couldn't paint or draw, but this is more like sculpture, really, a creation of touch and texture. And the craft is hereditary in the Ravengla.s.s family, you know; like blindness. Being born blind, and then being given half-sight a" sometimes I think that combination creates a heightening of imagination. All forms are vague and wonderful ... you see in them what you want to see. I have two sisters who are both blind too, and who have their own shops here in the city. And many other relatives as well, all doing the same, though not all blind. It takes a lot of creative energy to make certain that there's a mask for every reveller who will be dancing in these streets at the next Festival time. And you know something?" She smiled, the pride s.h.i.+ning through it. "Mine are the best of all. I, Fate Ravengla.s.s Winter, will make the mask of the Summer Queen... A piece of red velvet, please."

Sparks pa.s.sed her the piece of cloth, letting it slither sensuously between his fingers. "But all this work a" half a life's work a" it's only for one night! And then it's gone. How can you bear that?"

"Because it's so important to Tiamat's ident.i.ty as a separate world a" our heritage. The rituals of the Change are a tradition that reaches back into the clouded times before the Hegemony and its rulers ever set foot on our world ... some of it into the time when we were off worlders here ourselvesa""

"How do you know?" interrupting. "How do you know what anybody did before the first s.h.i.+ps sailed down out of the Great Storm?" He slipped absentmindedly into the language of myth.

"All I know is what I hear on the threedy She smiled. "The off worlders have archaeologists who study the Old Empire's records and ruins. They claim we came here as refugees from a world called Trista, after some interstellar war near the end of the Old Empire. These fantasy faces I make began as real creatures; once they were on the standards of the first s.h.i.+p families that ancestored Summer and Winter. You probably recognize some of them a" in Summer they still have meaning. Your s.h.i.+p name Dawntreader, is one of the original dozen names a" did you know that?" Sparks shook his head. "But when the Hegemony came, they made us ashamed of our 'primitive' traditions; so now we only bring them out at the Festival, not really celebrating the Prime Minister's visit, but our own heritage."

"Oh." He was still confused and disturbed by the Winters' Ladyless view of history, although he would never admit it.

"Anyway, some things are more beautiful simply because they are ephemeral. Think of a flower opening, or a song as you play it, or a rainbow ... think of making love."

"What if there were no more rainbows ..." Sparks thought of those things, and bit his lip. "I guess it's stupid to look back and be sorry they're gone, then."

"It's human." She tilted her head quizzically, as though she were listening to his thoughts. "But for the artist the real joy is in the creation of the thing. When you feel something growing under your hands, you grow with it. You're alive, the energy flows. When it's finished, you stop growing. You stop living. You only live for the next act of creation. Don't you feel that, when you play your music?"

"Yes." He picked up his flute, running his fingers along the hair fine seams left like scars on the wounded sh.e.l.l, where she had put it back together for him. She had done her work so well that even its sound had scarcely been altered. "I guess so. I never thought about it. But I guess I do."

"The blue-violet beetle's wing, please ... thank you. I don't know how I got along before you came." Malkin sidled along Fate's hip and crept up into her lap, kneading the cloth of her loose skirt.

Sparks laughed; a pinched, self-deprecating sound that told her truth was flowing upstream. In spite of her prediction to him the first time they met, the compet.i.tion of the Maze's numberless delights was too much for his fragile island music; he barely earned enough with his street-corner songs to put food in his mouth. He inhaled, breathing in the confusion of exotic smells from the Newhavenese botanery next door and the Samathan restaurant across the alley. If she hadn't given him the shelter of her back room, instead of sleeping under the watchful gaze of a thousand spirit face masks he would be sleeping in the gutter ... or worse.

He looked back at her, grateful at last that she had forced him to go to the off worlder police to make his accusation against the slavers. He remembered the surprise on the face of the Blue who had saved his life when she saw him again, and the guilt that had reflected on his own. He sighed. "Are the off worlders really all going to just pack up and leave Tiamat after the next Festival? Abandon everything they have here? It's hard to believe."

"Yes, almost all of them will go." She twisted a ta.s.sel from golden cord. "Their preparations have already begun, just as ours have. You could sense the changes if you'd grown up here. Will that make you sad?"

He looked up, because it wasn't the question he had expected. "I... don't know. Everybody in Summer always said it was a day to look forward to, the Change; that we'd come into our own. And I hate how the off worlders blind Winter with a lot of glory while they take what they want, and then think they can just forget about us." His hand closed over his medal; he twisted his fingers through the openings. "But..."

"But you've been blinded by the glory, just like all of us Winters." She broke off her knot tying to stroke Malkin's silvery, sleeping back.

"Ia"

She smiled, watching him with her third eye. "What's wrong with that? Nothing. You asked me once whether I resented not being able to leave our world, when I might have my blindness cured somewhere else. You were thinking that I must resent being given these sensors instead a" having to settle for half-sight instead of full vision. If I looked at it with perfect eyes, that's what I might have seen, too. But I looked with blind eyes ... and to me they look wonderful,"

"Wonder-full." Sparks leaned back against the wall of the shop, looking away down the alley. "And after the Festival it all ends."

"Yes. The last Festival. Then the off worlders will abandon us, and the Summers will have to move north again, and life as I've always lived it will cease. This time the choosing of the Queen for a Day will be in earnest ... the Summer Queen's mask will be my last and best creation."

"What will you do after the Festival is over?" He realized suddenly that the question was more than rhetorical.

"Begin a new life." She tightened a final knot. "Just like everyone else in Carbuncle. That's why it's called the Change, you know." She held the finished mask up like an offering to the people pa.s.sing in the alleyway. He saw some of them stare and smile.

"Why did they call you Fate? Your parents, I mean."

"My mother. Haven't you guessed? For the same reason you were called Sparks. Merrybegots have special names."

"You mean, two Festivals ago a" ?"

She nodded. "And it's been a heavy load, to carry a name like that around for a lifetime. Be glad you don't have to."

He laughed. "It's hard enough to carry "Summer' around, in Carbuncle. It's like an anchor, it keeps me from getting anywhere." He picked up his flute again and put it to his lips; put it down, looking toward the alley entrance as a murmur of surprise traveled from person to person toward them.

"What is it?" Fate put the mask aside, her forehead wrinkling in an unconscious squint.

"Somebody's coming up the alley. Somebody rich." He could see the fineness of the clothing before he could make out the faces as the strangers came up the narrow way. There were half a dozen women and men, but his gaze caught on the one who clearly led the rest. The richness of her exotic clothing suddenly meant nothing, as he saw her face clearly' Sparks Fate's hand found his arm and tightened around it.

He didn't answer. He stood up slowly, feeling the world draw back until he was left alone in a private s.p.a.ce with only ... "Moon!"

She stopped, smiling recognition at him, and waited while he crossed the s.p.a.ce to her.

"Moon, what are you a" ?"

Her attendants closed around him, catching his arms, holding him back from her. "What's the matter with you, boy? You dare to approach the Queen?"

But she lifted her hand, signaling them to let him go. "It's all right. I remind him of someone else, that's all... Isn't that right, Sparks Dawntreader Summer?"

They all looked at her, but none of them could match his own disbelief. She was Moon, she was Moon ... but not Moon, too. He shook his head. Not Moon. The Queen... Then this was the Snow Queen, the Queen of Winter, who stood before him. Embarra.s.sed, half-frightened, he dropped to his knees before her.

She reached down, took his hand, and drew him to his feet. "That isn't necessary." He raised his head, found her studying his face with an intensity that made him blush and look away. "How rare to find a Summer with any respect. Who is it that I reminded you of so much that you saw her instead?" Even the voice was the same; and yet something in it mocked him.

"My a" cousin, Your Majesty. My cousin Moon." He swallowed. "H-how did you know who I am?" She laughed. "If you were a Winter, you wouldn't ask that. Nothing in this city escapes my attention. For instance, I've heard about your unusual talent as a musician. In fact, I've come here today just to meet you. To ask you to come to the palace and play for me."

"Me?" Sparks rubbed his eyes, suddenly not sure whether he was awake. "But, n.o.body even listens to my musica"" He felt the day's few coins rattle in his half-empty pocket.

"The right people listen." Fate's voice reached him from behind. "Didn't I tell you they would?"

The Queen's gaze followed as he glanced back. "Well, mask maker. How is your work proceeding? Have you begun the Summer Queen's mask yet?"

"Your Majesty." Fate bowed her head solemnly. "My work has been going better than usual, thanks to Sparks. But it isn't time yet for the Summer Queen." She smiled. "Winter still reigns. Take care of my musician. I'm going to miss him."

"The best care imaginable," the Queen said softly.

Sparks moved to the stoop, picked up his flute and slipped it into the pouch at his belt. Then, impulsively, he took Fate's hands in his own, leaned across the trays to kiss her cheek. "I'll come and see you."

"I know you will." She nodded. "Now, don't keep your future waiting."

He stood up, turned back toward the Queen, blinking as reality and illusion blurred his vision. Her attendants closed around him like the petals of an alien flower, and she took him away.

Chapter 9.

"I'm going to ask him for a ride. I can't wait here any longer. Too much time has pa.s.sed already." Moon stood at the window of her grandmother's cottage, looking out through the rippled gla.s.s toward town. Her mother sat at the heavy wooden table where her grandmother was cleaning fish; Moon kept her back to them, ashamed at needing that crutch to support her resolution. "That trader won't be back again for months. Think of how long it's been since Sparks sent for me." And she had been too late, by a month, coming home; the trader who had brought her the message had already gone on his way again. Her hands whitened on the wooden window ledge, among the sh.e.l.ls she and Sparks had gathered on the beach together when they were children. There would not be another s.h.i.+p coming to these remote islands from Carbuncle for too long; the closest place where she could hope to find one was at Shotover Bay, on the edge of Winter, and that was too long a journey by sea for her to make alone.

But in the fields above the village now a stranger worked to repair a s.h.i.+p that flew, like the s.h.i.+p she had seen in one of her trances; not a Winter, but an actual off worlder the first one who had ever set foot on Neith, a man with skin the color of bra.s.s and strange, hooded eyes. His flying s.h.i.+p had made a forced landing, she had watched it come out of the sky while she stood among the villagers' eager questions this morning. She had been relieved and a little proud to tell them from her own knowledge what the thing was, and that it was nothing to be afraid of.

And the off worlder had looked relieved, too, that the villagers had known enough about technology not to panic. Listening to him speak, Moon had realized that he was just as uneasy about his presence among them as they were. They had all gone away at his brusque urging, leaving him to work in peace, hoping that if they ignored him he would disappear again.

And she had to act now, before he did disappear. He must be on his way to Carbuncle; all the off worlders were from there. If he would only take her, too ...

"But Moon, you're a sibyl now," her mother said.

Angry with half-guilt, she turned back to them. "I won't be abandoning my duty! Sibyls are needed everywhere."

"Not in Carbuncle." Her mother's voice strained. "It's not your faith I'm questioning, Moon, it's your safety. You're the Sea's daughter now. I know I can't forbid you to lead your own life. But they don't want sibyls in Carbuncle. If they learned what you werea""

"I know." She bit her lip, remembering Danaquil Lu. "I know that. I'll keep my trefoil hidden while I'm there." She picked it up on its chain, cupping it in her hands. "Just until I find him."

"It's wrong for him to ask you to go." Her mother stood up, walking restlessly around the table. "He must know that he's putting you in danger. He wouldn't ask that if he was thinking of you. Wait for him to come to you, wait for him to grow up and stop thinking only of himself."

Moon shook her head. "Mother, it's Sparks we're talking about! He wouldn't say that he can't come home unless he's in trouble. He wouldn't ask me to come unless he needs me." And I've already betrayed him once. She looked out the window again. "I know him." She picked up a sh.e.l.l. I love him.

Her mother came to stand beside her; she sensed the hesitation that kept even her own mother a little apart from her now, when they stood together. "Yes, you do." Her mother glanced back at Gran, who still sat at the table with concentration fixed on her scaling. "You know him better than I do. You know him better than I know you." Her mother touched her shoulder, turned her until they faced each other; she saw a brief instant of awe and sorrow in her mother's gaze. "My daughter is a sibyl. Child of my heart and body, sometimes I feel as though I don't really know you at all."

"Mamaa"" Moon bent her head, pressed her cheek against her mother's callused hand. "Don't say that."

Her mother smiled, as though an unspoken question had been answered.

Moon straightened again, took her mother's hand carefully and lowered it in her own. "I know I've only just come home. And I wanted so much to have this time with you." Her hands squeezed tight; she looked down. "But at least I have to talk to the off worlder "I know." Her mother nodded, still smiling. She picked up the slicker that lay at the foot of Moon's cot and handed it to her. "At least I know the Lady goes with you now, even if I can't."

Moon pulled the slicker on over her head and went out of the house. She followed the stony track to the terraced village fields, half running with the fear that she would see the off worlder s.h.i.+p rise into the drizzling gray sky before she reached it. And as she climbed the parapet onto the terrace where the flying s.h.i.+p sat, a high whine filled the sodden air around her, the unearthly sound of a power unit engaging.

"Wait!" She began to run, seeing the handful of curious children who lurked at the field's perimeter point at her and wave, thinking she waved at them. But the man in the flying s.h.i.+p stuck his head out the door opening to look at her, too, and the whining died.

He stepped out of the craft and straightened up. He wore the clothing of an islander, but it was made from a material she had never seen before. She slowed as she realized that he was not about to leave without her. He put his hands on his hips, glaring down at her as she approached; she saw suddenly how very tall he was, that she barely reached his shoulder. "All right, what's the crisis, missy?"

She stopped, reduced by the tone of his voice to another childish nuisance in a mucky field on a rocky, G.o.dforsaken island. "I a" I thought you were taking off."

"I will be, just as soon as I get my tools aboard. Why do you ask?"

"That soon." Moon looked down at her slicker, tightening her resolution. If it had to be now, it had to be. "I'd like to ask you a favor before you go."

He wasn't looking at her; he slid a compartment shut beneath the window curve at the craft's front and rapped on it with a hand. "If you want an explanation about how the magic s.h.i.+p flies, I'm afraid I just haven't got the time. I'm late for an appointment."

"I know how they fly, my cousin told me." Her own irritation chewed the words. "I just want you to take me to Carbuncle."

He did look up this time, in mild astonishment. She forced the smile that said she had every right to ask. Several responses almost got past his lips, before he stooped to pick up his tool kit. "Sorry. I'm not going to Carbuncle."

"Buta"" She took a step, putting herself between him and the door opening as he started toward it. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to Shotover Bay, if it's any business of yours. Now if you'll justa""

"That's all right. That's fine, in fact. Will you take me there instead?"

He pushed back his black, reed-straight hair, leaving a muddy track through it; he was beardless, but a black mustache draped his downturned mouth. "Just why in the names of a thousand G.o.ds should I do that?"

"Well ..." She almost frowned at his lack of generosity. "I'd be glad to do anything you ask, to repay you." She hesitated, as his expression changed for the worse. "I ... guess I've made a mistake, haven't I?"

He laughed unexpectedly. "That's all right, missy." He thrust the tool kit past her into the s.p.a.ce behind the seats. "But you shouldn't be so ready to run off with the first stranger you see. You might just wind up in a worse situation than the one you think you're in."

"Oha"" Moon felt her cheeks burning in the cold air. She put a hand up, covering her face. "Oh, no, that's not what I meant! Here in the islands, when someone wants to go somewhere, and you're going, you just a" take them..." Her voice disappeared. "I'm sorry." She started away, stumbling over a rut, suddenly feeling like precisely the foolish child she had seen in his eyes.

"Well, wait a minute." The sand of annoyance was still in his voice, but its sting wasn't as sharp. "Why do you want to go there?"

She turned back again, trying to remember the trefoil hidden beneath her slicker, and that she had a right to a sibyl's dignity. "I want to find a s.h.i.+p at Shotover Bay to take me to Carbuncle. It's very important to me."

"It must be, to make a Summer willing to get into a flying machine with an offworlder."

Moon's mouth tightened. "Just because we don't use off world technology, that doesn't mean we turn pale at the sight of it."

He laughed again, appreciatively, as though he enjoyed being paid in kind. "All right, then. If all you want is a ride, missy, you've got it."

"Moon." She put out her hand. "Moon Dawntreader Summer."

"Ngenet ran Abase Miroe." He took her hand and shook it, not clasping wrists as she was used to; said, as an afterthought, "Last name first. Climb aboard and strap in."

She climbed in resolutely on the far side, looking no further than the present moment, and fumbled with the safety harness. The interior of this craft was different from the one she had seen in her trance; she thought that it looked simpler. She held tight to the straps, and its false familiarity. Ngenet ran Ahase Miroe got in behind the controls and sealed the doors; the whine began to build in the s.p.a.ce around them, muted this time, no louder than the rush of blood in her ears.

There was no sensation of movement when they lifted from the field, but as she saw Neith and her village fall away below she felt a sourceless wrench of pain, as though something inside her had been pulled apart. She pressed her hands against her chest, feeling the trefoil safely beneath her clothes, and sang a silent prayer.

The hovercraft banked sharply, heading out over the open sea.

Chapter 10.

Jerusha PalaThion stared out at the endless mirroring blue seeded with green island hummocks. She pictured it flowing past beneath the patrol craft like waters under the earth, pictured herself caught in an endless loop of time, freed from the suffocating futility of her duty... She blinked her eyes back into focus, glanced over at Gundhalinu where he sat reading behind the autopilot-locked controls. "How much longer till we get to Shotover Bay, BZ?"

He glanced up, down at the chronometer on the panel. "Still a couple of hours, Inspector."

She sighed, and s.h.i.+fted her feet again.

"You sure you don't want to read one of my books, Inspector?" He held up one of the battered Old Empire fantasies that he spent half his off-duty time wallowing in. It was in Tiamatan; she read the t.i.tle: Tales of the Future Past.

"No thanks. Being bored is more interesting." She flicked an siesta pod discreetly into the waste container. "How can an honest technocrat like you stand to read that c.r.a.p, BZ? I'm surprised it doesn't cause brain damage."

He looked indignant. "These are based on solid archaeological data and a.n.a.lysis of sibyl Transfers. They'rea"" he grinned, the vacant bliss crept back into his eyes a" "the next best thing to being there."

"Carbuncle's the next best thing to being there; and if that's any sample, good riddance to the good old days."