The Snow Queen (33 page)

Moon
stopped breathing as all their eyes reached her at once. “No!”

“No, KR,”
Elsevier said, frowning. “You can’t ask her to endure that again! She couldn’t
if she wanted to.”

“She can—if
she wants to enough.” Aspundh touched his trefoil. “I can help you, Moon; you
won’t have to go through it unprepared this time. If you want your old life
back, and your power as a sibyl, you can—you must—do this thing. We can’t face
down all our night fears; but you must face this one, or you’ll never believe
in yourself again. You’ll never use the precious gift you carry; you’ll never
be anything at all.” The sharp voice stung her. He folded his hands, resting
them on the table.

Moon shut
her eyes, and the blackness swallowed her whole.
But it isn’t finished yet. I was meant to be something more! And he was
meant to be with me. He can’t be lost, he wouldn’t forget me; it isn’t finished
...
Sparks
’s
face burned away the darkness like a rising sun. It was true, she had to do
this; and if she did she would know that she had the strength to solve any
problem. She opened her eyes, rubbed her trembling arms to still them. “I have
to try.” She saw the half-formed grief in Elsevier’s deep-blue eyes—and the
half-formed fear. “Elsie, it means everything to me. I won’t fail you.”

“Of course
you won’t, dear.” A single nod, a ghost of smile. “All right, we’ll do it. But
KR—” she glanced up. “How will we back again without her get?”

His own
smile twitched with secret guilt. “With false papers, which I shall also
provide. In the chaos of the final departure on Tiamat, you’ll never noticed
be, I’m sure, even—Silky.”

“Why, KR,
you secret sinner.” She laughed weakly.

“I don’t it
amusing consider.” His face did not. “If I teach this girl all that a sibyl
should know and then send her back to Tiamat, I will an act of treason be
committing. But in doing this I obey a higher law than even the Hegemony’s.”

“Forgive
me.” She nodded, chastened. “What about our ship?”

“It will a
fitting monument in space to my late brother’s impossible —dreams be. I told
you that you’d never for anything want, El sevier. Do this thing, and you’ll
never again need to smuggle.”

“Thank
you.” A spark of rebellion showed in her eyes. “We were planning to retire,
anyway, if this last trip hadn’t such an utter disaster been. This gives us one
more opportunity our wares to—deliver, after all.”

Aspundh
frowned briefly.

Cress
unfolded his legs with leaden effort as the others began to stir. Looking at
him, Moon found him looking at her; his glance hurried on, caught at Elsevier
like an orphan’s hand. He grinned, badly. “I guess this is good-bye, then,
Elsie?”

Moon stood
up, helped him to his feet while the realization registered around the table.
“Cress—”

“Consider this
my payment on the debt we owe you, young mistress.” He shrugged.

Elsevier
turned to Aspundh, but Moon saw his face tighten with refusal even before the
question formed. “It won’t be hard for him another ship to find; astrogators
are highly in demand in your-trade, I’m sure.”

“

“There are
smugglers and smugglers,” KR,” Elsevier said.

“You mean
they might not all a ship with a man blacklisted for murder want to share?”
Aspundh’s expression turned to iron.

Moon let go
of Cress’s sleeve.

Cress
flushed. “Self-defense! It’s in the record, self-defense.”

“A
drugged-up passenger challenged him to a duel, KR. The man would him have
killed. But the rules don’t any exceptions make ... Really, do you imagine that
I’d a ship with a murderer share?”

“I can’t
even why you married my brother imagine.” Aspundh sighed in defeat. “All right,
Elsevier; though you press my promise to you near the breaking point. I suppose
I a shipping line somewhere own that can an astrogator take on.”

“You mean
that? Oh, gods—” Cress laughed, swaying like a reed. “Thank you, old
mas—citizen! You won’t sorry be.” He glanced at Elsevier, a long, shining
glance full of gratitude.

“I hope
not,” Aspundh said; he moved past Cress to Moon’s side. “And you won’t me sorry
make either, will you?”

In his eyes
she saw the grim reflection of what her failure would mean, not to herself
alone, but to the others. “No,” firmly.

He nodded.
“Then stay with me for the next few days, while the ship is readied, and let me
you all a sibyl should know teach.”

“All right.”
She touched her throat.

“KR, must
she—”

“It’s for
her own good, Elsevier—and for yours—that I her here keep.” He lifted his head
slightly.

“Yes ... of
course.” Elsevier smiled. “You’re quite right, of course. Moon, I—” She patted Moon’s
hand, looked away again. “Well, never mind. It doesn’t matter. Never mind.” She
went on toward the door, not looking back to see Moon’s outstretched hand.
Silky followed her wordlessly.

“Well,”
Cress grinned, half at her, half at his feet. “Good luck to you, young
mistress. “You could be Queen.” I’ll tell them I knew you when.” He kept her
gaze at last. “I hope you find him. Goodbye.” He backed away, turned and went
out after the others. Moon watched the empty doorway silently, but it remained
empty.

Moon sat
alone in the garden swing, giving it momentum with the motion of her foot.
Overhead the night sky sang, a hundred separate choirs of color transfiguring
into one. Moon rested her head on the pillows, listening with her eyes. If she
closed them she could hear another music: the sweet complexities of a
Kharemoughi art song drifting out through the open doors onto the patio, the
counterpoint of insects chirping in the shrubs, the shrill and guttural cries
of the strange menagerie of creatures that wandered the garden paths.

She had
spent this day like the ones before it, practicing the exercises that
disciplined her mind and body, watching the information tapes that KR Aspundh
gave to her, learning all that was known to the Hegemony about what sibyls were,
and did, and meant to the people of their worlds. The sibyls of this world
attended a formal school, where they were sheltered and protected while they
learned to control their trances—as she had learned, more uncertainly, from
Clavally and Danaquil Lu on a lonely island under the sky.

But besides
the rigorous basic discipline, Aspundh and the other sibyls of the Hegemony
learned about the complex network of which they were a part, the vast reach of
the Old Empire’s technological counter spell against the falling darkness. They
understood that the

They
learned the real nature of their power: the capacity not only to ease the
day-to-day burdens of life, but to actually better it; to contribute to the
social and technological growth of their world more profoundly than even the
greatest genius—because they had access to the accumulated genius of all human
history ... if only their people had the wisdom, and the willingness, to make
use of that knowledge.

And they
were taught the nature of their unnatural “infection,” how to use its potential
to protect themselves from harm, how to protect their loved ones from its risk.
A sibyl could even bear a child. The artificial virus did not pass through the
placenta’s protective filters—ensuring the birth of children who might not
share their mother’s temperament, but who would have more chance than most of
becoming sibyls to a new generation. To have a child ... to lie in the arms of
the only one she would ever love, and know that they could be all to each other
that they had ever been ...

Moon sat
up, startled out of her reverie by the sound of someone coming toward her
across the patio. But he loves another now. The memory of the thing that
separated them now, more than just a gap of distance and time, hurt her
abruptly as she saw KR Aspundh approaching.

“Moon.” He
smiled a greeting. “Shall we our evening stroll take?” Every evening he walked
down through his gardens to the small building of pillared marble in the heart
of a shrubbery maze, where the ashes of his ancestors rested in urns. The
Kharemoughis worshiped a hierarchy of deities, neatly extending their view of a
stratified society into the realm of heaven, and incorporating the pantheon
that watched over the Hegemony’s other worlds. On its first tier were a
person’s revered ancestors, whose success or failure determined their child’s
place in society. Aspundh paid homage devoutly to his own ancestors; Moon
wondered if a father’s success made it easier to believe in his divinity.

She got up
from the swing. Each evening she joined him on his walk, and in the privacy of
the gardens they discussed the questions her day’s studies had left unanswered.

“Are you
warm enough? These spring evenings are chilly. Take my cloak.”

“No, I’m
fine.” She shook her head, secretly defiant. She wore the sleeveless robe she
had picked out on the threedy shopper’s-guide show. She had the feeling that
even the sight of a bare arm embarrassed these people; she resented being
forced to wear more than she wanted to, and so she wore less.

“Ah, to
have a hardy upbringing!” He laughed; she felt a small frown form. “You’re not
your lovely smile tonight wearing. Is it because tomorrow you back to the
spaceport must go?” They began to walk together, Moon controlling her strides
to match his slower steps.

“Partly.”
She looked down at her soft slippers, the pattern of the smooth stones
underfoot. Silky would spend hours crouching over them in fascination ... She
would even be glad to see him again, more glad to see Elsevier; to escape from
the stifling perfection of this world’s artificial beauty. She looked forward
to these evening walks, but during the day KR was preoccupied with business and
ALV oversaw her studies, making certain that discretion was maintained while a
young girl of questionable background stayed in her father’s house. ALV treated
her respectfully, because of the trefoil at her throat; but ALV’s very presence
could turn her every move into a clumsy stumble, a spilled bowl, a broken vase.
ALV’s relentless sophistication made mispronunciation fatal, questions gauche, and
laughter unthinkable. This was a world afraid to laugh at itself, afraid of
losing control—control of the Hegemony, control of Tiamat.

“Do you
feel that you more time need? I think there’s little more I can you teach ...
and time is critical now, unfortunately.”

“I know.” A
startled creature spread its ruff of winking scales and shrieked in their path.
“I know I’m as ready as I can be. But what if I’ll never ready enough be?” She
had felt her belief in herself and in the trefoil tattoo she wore, the power
that it represented, slowly reform as she learned the truth; but still she had
not been able to begin an actual Transfer, for fear that a failure now would
mean failure forever.

“You will
ready be.” He smiled. “Because you must be.”

She managed
a smile of her own as affirmation echoed in her mind. There were some things
about the sibyl network that even the Kharemoughis couldn’t explain—anomalies,
unpredictabilities—as though the all-knowing source of the sibyls’ inspiration
was somehow imperfectly formed. Some of its answers were so involuted that no
experts had ever been able to make them clear; sometimes it seemed to act
toward ends of its own, although ordinarily it only reacted. This time it had
chosen to act, and chosen her as its tool ... She wouldn’t fail; she couldn’t.
But what was her goal, if
Sparks
no longer wanted her?
To get him back. I
will. I can.
She tightened her fists, not letting it go.
We belong to each other. He belongs to me.

“That’s
better,” Aspundh said. “Now, what final questions will you of me ask? Is
anything still unclear?”

She nodded
slowly, asking the one question that had troubled her from the beginning. “Why
does the Hegemony want it on Tiamat a secret kept, that sibyls everywhere are?
Why do you the Winters tell that we evil are, or crazy?”

He frowned
as though she had broken some particularly strong taboo. “I cannot that to you
explain, Moon. It’s too complicated.”

“But it’s
not right. You said that sibyls vital were—they only did good things for a
world.” She realized suddenly what that said about the Hegemony’s intentions;
realized how much more she had learned here than simply what she had been
taught.

Aspundh’s
expression told her that he realized it, too, and regretted it—because he was
powerless to stop it. “I hope I haven’t done, and shan’t do, too great a harm
to my own world.” He looked away. “You must to Tiamat returned be. But I pray
that it no grief to Kharemough brings.”

She had no
answer.

They left
the fragrant pathway through the flowering sillipha, wound into the topiary
maze until the marble shrine appeared, reflecting pastel skylight, at its
hidden heart. Aspundh went on into the shadowed interior; Moon sat on a
dew-damp marble bench to wait. The scent of propitiatory incense reached her on
the rising breeze; she wondered what prayers KR Aspundh spoke to his ancestors
tonight.