The Snow Queen (49 page)

Moon
flushed with fresh anger. “That isn’t allowed!”

“Neither is
smuggling. But it’s done.” He sneezed violently, spilling his drink on himself,
on her.

“I’m not a smuggler.”
She flinched, brushed droplets from her parka. “But not because I think it’s
wrong. You’re the ones who are wrong, Gundhalinu, you Blues—letting your people
come here and take what they want, and give us nothing in return.”

He smiled
mirthlessly. “So you’ve swallowed that simplistic line bait and hook, have you?
If you wanted ... to see real greed and exploitation, try a world that didn’t
have our police force to keep the peace. Or to keep ... people like you from
coming back to make trouble, once you’ve been off world

Moon
settled back on her heels, saying nothing, holding the words prisoner.
Gundhalinu matched her silence; she sat listening to the breath wheeze in his
throat. “This is my world, I have the right to be here. I am a sibyl, Gundhalinu,
and I’ll serve Tiamat any way I can.” Something harsher than pride filled her
voice. “I can prove my claim any time you ask. Ask, and I will answer.”

“No need,
sibyl.” A whisper of apology. “You already have. I ought to hate you, for
curing me—” He rolled onto his stomach, looking down at her; she blinked at his
expression, her hands closed over her own wrists. “But knowing I’m alive and
not alone, seeing your face ... hearing you speak a civilized language, my own
language: Gods, I never thought I’d ever hear it again! I thank you—” his voice
broke. “How long ... how long were you on Kharemough?”

“Almost a
month.” She put another piece of dried meat into her mouth, let the juices
begin to dissolve, easing a throat closed by sudden empathy. “But—I might have
stayed longer, maybe all my life. If things had been different.”

“Then you
liked it there?” There was no sarcasm now, only a hunger. “Where were you? What
did you see?”

“The
Thieves’ Market, mostly. And the star port city.” She sat cross legged, pulling
her feet into place, and let her mind see only the days that had feasted her
eyes; see Elsevier and Silky and Cress alive and sharing her feast; the journey
down to the planet surface, and KR Aspundh’s ornamental gardens ... “And we
drank
lith
and ate sugared fruits ...
Oh, and on the screen we saw Singalu raised to Tech.”

“What?”
Gundhalinu sat against the wall, gasping with incredulous delight. She noticed
that he was missing a tooth. “Ye gods, I don’t believe it! Old Singalu? You’re
making that up, aren’t you?” Laughter was the best medicine.

She shook
her head. “No, really! It was an accident. But even KR was glad.” And she
remembered tears welling in Elsevier’s eyes, in her own ... Tears rose again
suddenly; tears of grief this time.

“Dropped in
on KR Aspundh.” He shook his head, wiped his own eyes, still grinning. “Even my
father didn’t just drop in on KR Aspundh! Well, go on, what next?”

Moon
swallowed. “We ... we talked. He asked me to stay a few days. He’s a sibyl, you
know—” She broke off.

“And I know
there are a lot .. of things you’re not telling me,”

Gundhalinu
said quietly. He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to know. I don’t even want
to know why the hell KR Aspundh has tech runners to tea. But you could have had
anything you wanted there—the life, all the things you couldn’t have here. Why?
Why did you leave all that, and risk everything to come back here? I can see it
in your eyes, you wish you hadn’t.”

“I thought
I had to.” She felt her broken nails dig into her palms. “I never wanted to go
off world in the first place. I was going to Carbuncle to find my cousin ...
But when I got to Shotover Bay I met Elsevier, and then the Blues tried to
arrest us—”

“Shotover
Bay?” A peculiarly chagrined expression settled over his face. “It’s a small
universe. No wonder I keep thinking ... I’ve seen your face somewhere.”

She leaned
forward with a smile starting, studied his face in turn. “No—I guess I was too
busy running.”

He twitched
his mouth. “No one’s ever called it memorable. So you were going to Carbuncle.
But after five years, you aren’t still going there? Whatever happened to your
kinsman is ancient history, by now.”

“It’s not.”
She shook her head. “While I was on Kharemough I asked, and the Transfer told
me I had to return, that it wasn’t finished yet.” The cold silence of the void
grew loud inside her, squeezed her breath away. “But ever since I’ve come,
everyone I’ve cared about I’ve destroyed, or hurt ...” She hunched over, pulled
herself into a hiding place.

“You? I
don’t—understand.”

“Because I
came back!” She let the words come, making him see her for what she was, every
act and every retribution that had brought her relentlessly to this place ....
“I made it happen! I made them do it, it was all for me. I’m a curse—none of it
would have happened without me, none of it!”

“You
wouldn’t have seen it happen; that’s all. Nobody rules anyone else’s fate—we
don’t even control our own.” She felt his hand hesitantly on her shoulder. “We
wouldn’t be prisoners here; I wouldn’t be alive now to say ... you’re wrong to
blame yourself, if we did. Would I?”

She raised
her head. “But the mers, Lady, even the mers ... they were safe on Ngenet’s
land, until I came!”

“If
Starbuck and the Hounds were poaching, it was no fault of yours. It was
nobody’s doing but the Queen’s. I’d say you must be thrice blessed, not cursed,
if all you got ... out of an encounter with Starbuck was a sore throat.” He
began to cough, pressing his own throat.

“Starbuck?”
Slowly she uncoiled, stretching her legs, gathering the courage to ask: “Was
he—the man in black? What is he?” Not asking, Who is he?

Gundhalinu
raised his eyebrows, took his hand away from her softening shoulder. “You’ve
never heard of Starbuck? He’s the Queen’s consort: her Hunter, her henchman,
her chief advisor when she deals with us .” .. her lover.”

“He saved
my life.” She traced the scab of the healing wound across her neck, finding the
strength to ask, “Who is he, Gundhalinu?”

“No one
knows. His identity is kept secret.”

He loved you
once, but he loves her now. The words of the Transfer reverberated. “Now I
understand. I understand everything! . It’s true.” She looked away, and away;
but the emerald eyes behind the black executioner’s mask followed her,
followed’ What is?”

“My cousin
is Starbuck,” whispered.

Gundhalinu
said calmly, “He can’t be. Starbuck is an off worlder

“Sparks is
one too. His father was one. He always wanted to be like them, like the Winters
... And now he is.” A monster. How could he do this to me?

“You’re
jumping to conclusions. Just because Starbuck was afraid . to kill a sibyl—”

“He knew I
was a sibyl before he ever saw my sign!” She struck back at his insufferable
conviction. “He knew me; I know he did. And he was wearing the medal that was
Sparks’s.”
And he was killing mers.
She pressed her knotted fist against her mouth. “How could he? How could he
change into
that
?”

Gundhalinu
lay down again, uncomfortably silent. “Carbuncle does that to people. But if
it’s true, at least he had enough humanity left to spare your life. Now you can
forget about him; forget about . one problem, at least.” He sighed, staring up
into shadows.

“No.” She
pushed herself to her feet, moving in a stiff circle be side the cot. “I want
to get to Carbuncle more than ever. There has to be a reason for what he’s
done; if he’s changed, there’s a way to change him back.”
Win him back. I won’t lose ... not after I’ve come so far!
“I love
him, Gundhalinu. No matter what he’s done, no matter how he’s changed, I can’t
just stop loving him.”
Or needing him, or
wanting him back. He’s mine, he’s always been mine! I won’t give him up—no
matter whose he is, or what she’s made him into ...
She was appalled by the
truth, made helpless by it. She no longer saw the look on Gundhalinu’s face, as
his own expression slowly changed. “We pledged our lives to each other; and if
he doesn’t want that any more, he’s going to have to prove it to me.” One hand
made a fist, the other clung to it.

“I see.” He
smiled, but there was uncertainty behind it. “And I always thought you natives
led dull, uncomplicated lives,” unwitting condescension crept back, making him
comfortable. “At least on Kharemough love has the courtesy to know its place,
and not tear our hearts out of us.”

“Then
you’ve never been in love,” resentfully. She crouched down by the pile of
bright-and-dark cloth Blodwed had left them; picked up a piece distractedly. It
was a tunic, sewn with wide bands of woven braid.

“If you
mean all-consuming, sense-clouding, lightning-struck love—no. I’ve read about it
...” His voice softened at the edges. “But I’ve never seen it. I don’t think it
exists in the real universe.”

“Kharemoughis
don’t exist in the real universe.” She took off her parka, pulled open the seal
of her dry suit and climbed out of it, rubbing her skin-sore, abraded arms,
scratching her back. Letting him watch, aware that he tried not to; taking
perverse pleasure in his discomfiture. She pulled the soft, heavy tunic on over
her skimpy un dersuit, struggled into the leggings and fur-lined boots, buckled
the wide painted-leather belt around her hips. She touched the hand woven braid
that ran down the tunic front, along the hem—all the colors of sunset against
the night-blue wool. “This is beautiful..” Astonishment pushed up through her
darker preoccupation. She realized suddenly that the braid, the garment, were
very old.

“Yes.”
Gundhalinu’s expression was not the one she had expected. But she saw the
embarrassment lying below it, and felt a pinprick shame at his shame.

“Gundhalinu—”

“Make it
BZ.” He shrugged away his self-consciousness. “We’re all on a first-name basis
here.” He gestured at the animals.

She nodded.
“BZ. We’ve got to find—” She broke off again, hearing someone enter the
passageway. The lock rattled and the gate swung back. Blodwed came through it,
trailed by a small, rosy cheeked child and carrying a box. She pulled the gate
shut with her foot. The animals stirred and peered out at her all along the
walls; tension made their movements furtive. The toddler wandered toward the
cages, sat down unexpectedly on the floor in front of one. Blodwed ignored him,
coming on across the room.

Moon
glanced at Gundhalinu, saw the life go out of his eyes and the animation out of
his face, leaving bleak resignation. But Blodwed beamed as she dropped the box,
stood before him, inspecting him like an inquisitor. “I don’t believe it, he’s
all right! See—” She caught his sleeve, tugged on his arm. “I got a real sibyl
just to keep you alive, Blue-boy.” He pulled free, sitting up. “Now you can
finish reading to me.”

“Leave me
alone.” He put his feet over the cot’s edge, propped his head on his hands. He
began to cough, sullenly.

Blodwed
shrugged; looked back at Moon, scratching her beaky nose. “You okay too? I
thought you were both dead this morning.” A bare hint of deference crept into
her voice.

Moon
nodded, controlling her own voice, picking the words cautiously. “I’m all right
... Thank you for bringing me clothes to wear.” She touched the front of the
tunic. “This is very beautiful.” She couldn’t keep the incredulity out of it.

Blodwed’s
sky-blue eyes were full of pride for an instant; she glanced down. “They’re
just old stuff. They belonged to my great grandmother. Nobody wears those
things any more; nobody here even knows how to make them.” She tugged at the
hem of her dirty white parka, as though she really preferred it. She rummaged
in the carton, pulled out a fist-sized cube of plastic. Unintelligible noise
filled the air like ram. Blodwed began to hum a tune, and Moon realized that
she was picking it out of the radio static. “Reception really stinks back in
this cave. Of course it didn’t help that old Blue boy here tried to take this
apart and make a transmitter.” She made a face at him. “Here’s your dinner,”
tossing a can onto the cot. A

sudden
shriek behind them jerked Moon around. The toddler stood wailing, waving his
hands by the cages. “Well, don’t stick your fingers in there, damn it! Here’s
yours.”

Moon caught
the can as it arced into her hands, sat down and pulled the lid up. It vaguely
resembled stew. She watched Gundhalinu open his own can, with a twinge of
relief. “Is ... he your brother?” to Blodwed.

“No.”
Blodwed moved away, carrying handfuls of meat and a box with an animal’s
picture on it. She made the circuit from tethered creature to caged one, giving
them each their evening meal. Moon watched them nutter up or cringe away from
her rough movements, slink forward again after she passed.

Blodwed
came back, scowling, sat down with her own can. The little boy appeared beside
her, pulling at her jacket and whining. “Not now!” She pushed a spoonful of
stew into his mouth. “You know anything about animals?” She glanced at Moon,
looked back over her shoulder at the cages.

“Not
these.” Moon looked away from the boy, whose face was as perfectly pink and
white as a porcelain figurine.