The Snow Queen (47 page)

“I don’t
know. Nothing.” Jerusha shook her head. “Maybe everything we do is meaningless.
But we have to try, don’t we? We have to go on looking for justice ... and
settling for revenge.” She started back toward the patrol craft her arms
wrapped around her. As they passed the abandoned outrigger it occurred to her
that Arienrhod’s Hounds had destroyed Arienrhod’s clone child ... and Arienrhod
would never know it.

“I was
worried about you when they reported the storm.”

“It was
nothing. We just rode it out,” listlessly.

Soft
laughter. “How many of my Starbucks could say that without lying?”

Sparks
did not answer, lying motionless on
the bed, watching himself in the mirrors, watching her watch him watch, into
infinity. Arienrhod lay beside him; the curving lines of her body were the
folds of a continent rising from the sea, cloaked in the snow fields of her
hair. Strands of thread-fine silver chain spilled down from her waist like a
river of light. She massaged the fragrant oil into his skin with slow,
exploratory fingers; but his body did not respond. Would not respond, to her
most intimate touch, her most knowing suggestions.
Like a corpse ... gods, help me, I’m buried alive.

Arienrhod’s
hand slipped from his thigh as his muscles hardened, rigor mortis. She rolled
onto her stomach, resting across his chest as she looked down at him with
concern in her agate-colored eyes. The wrong eyes—as he saw the shadows that
lay just below the surface, the depths of wisdom without mercy ... the eyes of
a changeling who had made him a prisoner locked in his own mind. He closed his
own eyes.
But I did it all for you,
Arienrhod.

“Are you so
tired, then, after all?” She lifted the off worlder medal from his chest,
turning it idly between her fingers; he heard the undercurrent of cool
resentment below the shallows of her solicitude. “Or so bored? Shall I make it
a threesome—?”

“No.” He
put his arms around her and pulled her down on him, filling his hands with the
silken cloth of her hair, kissing her lips, her eyes, the hollow of her throat
. , . and feeling nothing. Nothing.

The
ghost-girl who had come to him out of the sea would lie between them whenever
they lay together from now on, and he would see her eyes—the right eyes, the
only eyes. They would accuse him, weeping tears of blood, forever ...
“Arienrhod,” despairingly. “Damn it, you know I love you! You know you’re
everything to me, everything she ever was, and more—” But the word was a moan.
His hands fell away from her.

Arienrhod
turned rigid on top of him. “

“She?” ...
What are you talking about, my love? Our Moon?” Her voice was soft and
clouded-over. “Does she still come back to haunt you, after so long? She’s
gone. We lost her a long time ago; you have to put her out of your mind.” She
stroked his temples with her fingers, in slow circling motions.

“By all the
gods, I thought I had!” He rolled his head from side to side, trying to look
away from his own reflection, but it followed him inexorably.

“Then why?
Why think about her now? Are you afraid of the Change coming? I promised you it
would never come.”

“I don’t
care about that.”
About killing my people
... then I don’t care about anything at all
. He shifted her carefully off
of him, rolled over onto his stomach and propped his head in his hands. She sat
up beside him, the girdle of silver threads whispering over her skin.

“Then
what—?” a wildness in it. Her hands closed over his shoulders. “You’re mine,
Starbuck; you’re all that I love in this world. I won’t share you with a Summer
dream. I won’t lose you to a ghost . even my own.”

“She wasn’t
a ghost! She was real.” He bit down on his fist.

Arienrhod’s
fingernails bit his flesh in turn. “Who?” knowing who.

“Moon.”
Something shook him, close to a sob. “Moon. Moon, Moon! She was there, at the
Hunt; she came out of the sea with the mers!”

“A dream.”
She frowned.

“No dream,
Arienrhod!” He threw himself onto his back, feeling her nails rake him. “I
touched her, I saw the sign on her throat-and the blood. I touched her blood
... she cursed me.”
Death to kill a sibyl
... death to love a
sibyl ...

“You fool!”
But not for his foolhardiness. “Why didn’t you tell me about this immediately?”

He shook
his head. “I couldn’t. I—”

She slapped
him; he fell back on the pillows in disbelief. “Where is she? What happened to
her?”

He rubbed
his hand across his mouth. “The Hounds—would have killed her. I stopped them.
I—I left her there on the beach.”

“Why?” A
world of loss in one whispered word.

“Because
she would have recognized me.” He tore the words out by the roots. “She would
have known ... she would have seen what I am!” His reflection pinwheeled him,
around and around and around.

“So you’re
ashamed to be my lover, and the most powerful man on this planet?” She tossed
back her hair.

“Yes,”
ashamed to look at her, too, as he said it. “When I was with her, I was
ashamed.”

“But you
left her alone on the shore with a blizzard coming, and you’re not ashamed of
that.” Arienrhod wrapped herself in her arms, shivered as though it was herself
he had abandoned.

“Damn it, I
didn’t know about the storm, there wasn’t any report!”
You only needed to look up at the sky to know
-But he had shut
himself into his cabin to hide his trembling loss of control from the Hounds;
and he had come out again only when the storm was already sweeping down on
them, when it was too late to think of anything but their own survival. And
afterward—it was too late for anything at all. He looked up angrily into
Arienrhod’s anger. “I don’t understand you! Why does she matter so much to you?
Even if she is your kinswoman, you were never close to her. Not like I was ...”

“No one in
this world is closer to her than I am.” Arienrhod leaned toward him. “Haven’t
you realized that? Haven’t you seen by now—I am Moon.”

“No.” He
pulled away from her; she caught the chain of his medal and held him tethered.

“Moon is my
clone! I had her raised as a Summer to take my place as Queen. We’re identical
in every way—every way.” She took his hands and ran them down along her body.
“And we both love you, above all others.”

“It isn’t
possible ...” He touched her face and knew that it was. They were night and
day, iron and air, gall and honey ...
Then
why do I love you both?
He bowed his head.
Because I do love you both; gods help me!
“Anything is possible.
Even that she’s come back to me.” Arienrhod looked through him, through time.
“But do I still need her ... do I still want her?” Her focus narrowed to him
again. “And do you, my love?”

He sagged
against her; felt her arms circle him, her hands stroke I him lovingly,
possessively. “No.”
No more than I ever
wanted her, only her
. “Only you, Arienrhod. You made me everything I am.
< You’re all I need.”
And you’re all I
deserve
.

“Come on,
sibyl! Come meet my other pets.” Blodwed’s sharp, high voice pricked Moon like
a goad, started her through the crowd of gawkers gathered at the entrance of
the cavern. They had all come forward to stare at her, pointing and muttering, calling
out vulgar questions that she ignored with all the restraint left in her dazed
body: a prize fish, dangling on the pier. But none of the nomads would get
close enough to touch her, and they parted before her stumbling progress like
grasses before the wind. Even Blodwed had never actually touched her; but Moon
recognized the stunner hanging from the girl’s belt.

And even if
she dared to break free from her captors, there was nowhere to go. They had
traveled for two days on snow skimmers climbing into the icebound highlands of
the interior, to get to this isolated nomads’ camp. She had no strength left to
carry her alone through the Winter wilderness ... barely the strength to carry
her on across the immense floor of the rock shelter. Dogs barked and bayed at
her passing, chained among the bright-colored synthetic tents, the patterned
gray-and-brown ones made from hides—the tents dotted the cavern like grotesque
fungal growths. Dozens of perpetual-radiance heaters and lanterns filled the
looming space with warmth and light, as the voices of the booty-haggling
kinsmen behind her filled and refilled it with echoing noise. Moon slowed,
holding out her mittened hands to one of the heaters as she passed. But
Blodwed’s impatience radiated like heat—”Come on, hurry up!” —and she moved on,
too numb with exhaustion and cold to protest.

Blodwed
herded her into a narrow, down sloping passage half in shadows at the rear of
the cave; she saw light dimly, on ahead. A miasma of strange smells prickled
like smoke inside her head as she went forward, to find her way barred by a
gate of wood and twisted wire. Blodwed pushed past her, pressed a thumb into
the bottom of the heavy lock. The lock opened, and she waved Moon through.

Moon went
ahead, hearing Blodwed come through behind her; stood still in place as she
took in the details of her new prison. The rock chamber was twenty or thirty
feet in diameter, with a ceiling almost as high, and an incandescent heater sat
in its center like a sun. Around the perimeter, locked in cages, tethered by
rope or chain, were creatures of half a dozen unidentifiable species, furred,
feathered, covered with scales or masses of naked wrinkles. She covered her
nose and mouth with her hand as the smell of their squalid misery struck her
full force. She saw them cringe, saw them snarl; saw the ones that lay sullenly
apathetic with no response at all ... saw the human being lying on a bare cot
by the far wall, as far from the gate, as far from the rest, as possible.

“Damn her!
Damn her!” Blodwed shouted suddenly. Moon jerked around, the menagerie hissed
and yowled and clamored, as Blodwed turned and ran back up the passage. The
gate banged shut behind her. Moon turned back, looking across the room toward
the figure still lying unresponsive on the cot. She went forward slowly,
limping as sensation began to burn in the soles of her feet again. The
frightened animals cowered back from her.

She reached
the stranger’s side without waking him, seeing as she approached that it was a
man, an off worlder ... a Blue. His heavy uniform coat was splattered with dark
stains, and he wore the dingy white leggings and boots of the nomads. Looking
down at his face she saw the finely-drawn features she had seen so often on
aristocratic Kharemoughis; but this face was like cut crystal, the skin
strained over the hollow bones. And still he did not wake. His breathing was
labored, wrong. She put out a hand uncertainly, touched his face; pulled it
back from the burn of fever.

She let her
quivering legs go out from under her, sank down be side his cot on the cold
floor. The animals had grown quiet, but she felt their frightened eyes still on
her, and their misery overwhelming her, until her own cup of misery overflowed.
She let her head fall against the cot’s edge, hard dry sobs shaking her apart.
Help me, Lady, help me ... everything I
touch I destroy.

“What’s ...
wrong?” A feverish hand ruffled her hair; she jerked upright, swallowed her
sobs. “Are you ... for me crying?” The words were in Sandhi. The sick man
struggled to lift his head; his eyes were red and crusted, she thought he
barely saw her.

“Yes.” Her
answer was scarcely louder than his question.

“No need—”
A fit of coughing knocked the breath and the words out of him.

“Look at
this! Look at it!” Moon stiffened back and around as Blodwed burst into the
chamber again, dragging a larger girl after her. “Smell it! I told you to keep
them right while I was gone!”

“I did—”
The older girl cried out as Blodwed caught her by the braid and yanked.

“I ought to
rub your face in it, Fossa. But I won’t, if you get this place clean before—”

“All right,
all right!” The older girl backed toward the gate, wiping away pain-tears. “You
snotty little wart.”

“Wait.
What’s wrong with him?” Blodwed pointed past Moon at the off worlder

“He’s sick.
He tried to get away when we let him out to take a piss; he ran right out into
the blizzard, you know? He went in circles and we found him right outside.” She
made the crazy sign, and shook her head, backing up the passageway.

Blodwed
came on across the chamber, crouched down beside Moon, looking at the sick
man’s face. “Ugh.” She clamped his jaw roughly in her hand as he tried to turn
his head away. “What did you do that for?” His eyes closed.

“I don’t
think he hears you.” Moon put a hand over his, squeezed his fingers lightly
before she let go. “He needs a healer, Blodwed,” tentatively.

“Is he
going to die?” Blodwed sat back on her knees, the truculence unexpectedly
melting out of her voice. “There’s no healer here. Ma used to do it, but she’s
not right in the head. She never taught anybody else. Can’t you help him?”