The Snow Queen (52 page)

Blodwed
swore, bent down to pick it up. “All right, then ...” her voice cracked. “I’m
keeping the rest!” She looked back at Moon. “But I know how to keep them better
now. They’ll want to stay with me.”

Moon
nodded, not trusting her own voice.

“I guess
you got everything.” Blodwed stroked the cub’s head selfconsciously. “Even the
distance-finder. You better hope you fixed it right, Blue.”

“What are
you going to do now?” Gundhalinu said. “When you don’t have anybody to fix
these things—or any way to get more? You’ve forgotten how to live like real
herders and hunters any more-like anything besides parasites.”

“I
haven’t.” Blodwed tossed her head. “I know the old ways too. Ma’s not going to
live forever, no matter what she thinks. I can take care of myself—and
everybody else, once I’m in charge. I don’t need you, foreigner!” She rubbed
her eyes. “Or you.” She threw her arms around Moon suddenly. “So you better get
out of here. You better go find him, before it’s too late!”

Moon hugged
her, all wrongs forgotten, all forgiven; felt the elf fox squirm between them.
“I will!”

Together
they pushed the sledge out onto the open snow, and Moon settled behind the
controls. She started the power unit, following Gundhalinu’s grudgingly
surrendered instructions.

“Hey,
Blodwed.” Gundhalinu twisted to look over his shoulder at her. “Here.” He
tossed her the battered novel. “I don’t expect I’ll ever want to read that
again.” He didn’t smile.

“I can’t
read it either, it’s in your language!”

“That’s
never stopped you before.”

“Get out of
here, damn you.” She waved the book like a threat; but Moon saw her smile.

Moon
switched on the headlamp, and they began the final journey northward.

Arienrhod
sat enthroned in the audience hall, where before another fortnight had passed
she would be receiving the Prime Minister of the entire Hegemony on his last
official visit. She wondered idly whether he would pity her. But today it was
merely the Commander of Police, and it did not require much imagination to guess
the reason for her visit. It must be a sign of how well Starbuck had succeeded
that PalaThion had come here herself.

PalaThion
left her escort among the gossiping nobles at the far side of the hall,
presumably so the two men would not be required to kneel. She was no longer
willing to kneel herself, now that she had become Commander—a small victory she
had won, the only one. Arienrhod smiled to herself as PalaThion removed her
helmet and bowed formally before her. “Your Majesty.”

“Commander
PalaThion. You look terrible, Commander—you must be working too hard. Your
people’s departure from Tiamat isn’t the end of the world, you know. You should
take care of yourself, or you’ll be old before your time.”

PalaThion
looked up at her with ill-concealed hatred, and barely detectable despair.
“There are worse things than growing old, Your Majesty.”

“I can’t
imagine one.” She leaned back. “To what do I owe this visit, Commander?”

“Two things
which I consider worse, Your Majesty: murder, and the illegal slaughter of mers.”
She sounded as though she believed there shouldn’t be any distinction. “I’ve
come with a warrant for the arrest of Starbuck, on charges of murder and of
killing mers on land belonging to an off worlder named Ngenet. He has forbidden
the Hunt on his plantation, as you know.” Her eyes snapped with accusation.

Arienrhod
raised her eyebrows, not entirely feigning surprise. “Murder? There must be
some mistake, some other explanation.”

“I saw one
body myself. And the bodies of the mers.” PalaThion blinked as the memory came
back to her, and her mouth pulled down. “There was no mistake, and there’s no
other explanation. I want Starbuck, and I want him now ... Your Majesty.”

“Of course,
Commander. I want to question him about the charges myself.” She had not learned
any more about Moon’s fleeting reappearance in the short time since it had
happened. But now— “Sparks!” She looked away across the whiteness of the room,
to where he stood among the nobles who had been displaying their Festival
costumes for her perusal. With the resourcefulness of the rich, they had
already managed to claim the most beautiful and elaborate specimens of the mask
makers art, and had costumes designed to match. They stood together like a
gathering of beautifully misbegotten beasts, their mutant totem-faces gazing at
her impassively, creatures out of a drug fantasy.

Sparks
came quickly at her call. She
watched him move, seeing how his blue sleeveless jerkin and tight-fitting pants
accentuated the litheness of his movement. But his expression was a false face,
his listless mourning made him as much of a stranger as any festival mask. He
kneeled before her with silent subservience, ignoring PalaThion utterly. She
was not certain whether his rudeness was calculated or only guilty; knowing that
he felt guilt toward the woman but never understanding why. “Yes, Your
Majesty.” He looked up.

She
gestured for him to rise. “Where is Starbuck,
Sparks
?”

He gaped at
her, recovered himself hastily. “I—uh, I don’t know, Your Majesty. He’s left the
palace. He didn’t tell me when he’d be back.” He showed her a sardonic hidden
smile, and his curiosity. “He doesn’t talk to me.”

“Commander
PalaThion has come to arrest him for murder.”

“For
murder?”
Sparks
turned to PalaThion.

Poison
showed in PalaThion’s eyes as she looked back at him; the poison was still
there as she lifted her head again. “How very well he timed that.”

“Come now,
Commander,” irritably. “Do you think I’m a mind reader? And I don’t condone
murder among my subjects.” PalaThion’s expression said that she wouldn’t be
surprised at either one. “I want to know more about this. You said you saw the
bodies yourself? Whose bodies?”

“I saw one
body—if you don’t include the corpses of the mers.” PalaThion swallowed, as
though it was more to her than simply an unpleasant memory.
Sparks
toyed with the agates at his belt
ends, striking them against his thigh like a whip, grimacing at each blow. “It
was the body of a dillyp.”

“A Hound!”
She couldn’t keep the disdain out of her relief.

“No, Your
Majesty,” coldly. “A dillyp. A free citizen of the Hegemony, a guest of Citizen
Ngenet. He had been stabbed. According to Ngenet another of his guests was
missing, and she is also presumed to be dead. She was a citizen of this world,
a Summer woman named Moon Dawntreader. The mer bodies had been mutilated.” She
made it as ugly as she could.

“Mutilated?”
Sparks said, too loudly.

Arienrhod
felt the spotlight of PalaThion’s gaze on her as she spoke Moon’s name: She
suspects. But she was prepared for this, and she kept her polite disgust
unchanging. “The name is vaguely familiar to me .... Is she a relative of
yours, Sparks?”

“Yes, Your
Majesty.” One hand closed over his other wrist; Arienrhod saw his nails bite
into his flesh. “If you remember, she was—my cousin.”

“You have
my condolences.” She gave him no warmth.

PalaThion
was watching her with something that was neither amazement nor disappointment,
but some of both. “She was an illegal returnee. She disappeared about five
years ago.” Something grated.

“I think I
recall the incident.”
And I thought it
was the end of everything; but it wasn’t.

“What do
you mean, the mers were—mutilated?” Sparks said again. “Mutilated how?”

“I have a
filmed record of it at headquarters, if you enjoy that sort of thing,
Dawntreader.”

“Goddamn
it, I didn’t mean—I want to know what happened to Moon!”

“Sparks.”
Arienrhod leaned forward in quiet warning. “It’s his cousin, after all,
Commander. Of course he’s concerned about what happened.”
Damn him
... seeing just how concerned he was.

“They had
been—skinned, Your Majesty.” PalaThion still frowned tightly.

“Skinned?”
She glanced at Sparks with veiled disbelief, saw in comprehension in his eyes.
“Starbuck would never do something like that. Why should he?”

“You’d know
his reasons better than I would, since he’s your man.” PalaThion toyed with her
weapons belt, coming treacherously close to arrogance. “Who else would have the
resources to drown so many mers at once?”

I don’t like this. I can’t see far enough into
it
. Arienrhod
probed the transparent convolutions of the throne’s arm. “Well, frankly,
Commander, even if he did do it, I don’t see why you’re so concerned. He’ll be
dead soon enough, when the Change comes.” She shrugged with fatalistic
acceptance, and a trace of smile.

“The law
can’t count on that, Your Majesty.” PalaThion looked at her pointedly. “And
besides—that would be too easy on him.”

Sparks
turned back; stopped himself, running a hand through his hair.

Arienrhod
felt the blood sing unexpectedly in her ears. “Speak for yourself, off worlder
I suggest you concern yourself with your own fate after the Change, and leave
ours to us.”

“Your fate
and mine are bound together, Your Majesty, since Tiamat belongs to the
Hegemony.” Arienrhod thought there was a subtle emphasis on belongs. But
PalaThion’s confidence cracked even as she made the bluff, and drove her back
into her place. PalaThion knew—yes, knew—that Winter had plans; but she knew
just as surely that she was helpless to stop them. “In any case, I want Stabuck
for questioning, and I expect that you will cooperate,” expecting nothing of
the kind.

“I’ll do
what I can to get this unpleasantness straightened out, of course.” Arienrhod
untangled the free-falling collar of crystal beads that cascaded down her
silver shirt. “But Starbuck is his own man, he comes and goes as he pleases. I
don’t know when I’ll see him next.”

PalaThion’s
mouth twisted skeptically. “My men will be looking for him too. But of course
it would help me more if you’d tell me his name.”

Arienrhod
gestured
Sparks
up onto the dais, stroked his bare arm with her hand. She felt it quiver as
though her touch burned him with cold fire. “I’m sorry, Commander. I can’t
reveal his identity to anyone; that would be a violation of trust, of the whole
concept of his position. But I will keep my eyes open for him ...” She reached
up to touch a lock of
Sparks
’s
hair, curled it around her finger; he only looked at her with sudden
apprehension. She smiled, and he smiled, uncertain.

“I can find
it out for myself. And when I do, I’ll get him!” PalaThion bowed with all the
appearance of propriety, and strode away.

Sparks
laughed tightly, a release of
tension. “Right in front of her eyes!”

Arienrhod
allowed herself to join him, without any real pleasure; remembering a time when
laughter was a simple thing, with its roots in joy, not pain ... “What a shame
she’ll never appreciate what she missed.”
But
I need to make certain of that
. “Starbuck will have to wear the mask of
Everyman for a while.”

Sparks
nodded, suddenly sober. “That’s all
right with me,” as suddenly bitter.

“What
happened on that beach?” She leaned toward him, holding him with her eyes.

“I told you
everything I know, everything I saw! We killed the mers in the usual way, and
we left them for Ngenet to find. We didn’t do anything else.” He folded his
arms in front of him. “I don’t know what happened after that. By’r Lady, I wish
I did ....” a miserable prayer of loss and longing.

She looked
away from him, feeling her face pinch with an unnameable emotion.
Do you? Then by all the gods, I hope you
never find out!

“Lady’s
Eyes!” The snow skimmer slewed to a halt.

Gundhalinu
echoed the muffled curse of Moon’s exasperation silently. A new stretch of
bare, stony ground blocked their path up the exposed face of another hillside.
He had never seen, or expected to see, the land beyond the spaceport when it
was not covered by meters of drifted snow. But Tiamat had reached orbital
summer again while he had been held prisoner; and it was entering the high
summer of the Change as well—when the Twins reached the periapsis of their path
around the Black Gate. The Gate’s gravitational influence was increasing the
solar activity of the twin suns; slowly thawing this frozen world, gradually
turning the equatorial regions insufferably hot.

In the past
few days, as they made their way down out of the black and silver wilderness
where the bandits camped, the weather had smiled on them. The vast, shining
solitude had stretched a pristine carpet below the glacier-bitten volcanic
peaks, beneath the flawless purity of the sky, day after day. And with every
passing day, although they journeyed northward, the temperature edged up and up
toward freezing, and passed it at the suns’ zenith. Their gratitude had turned to
curses of frustration as more and more patches of naked stone and tundra
blocked the snow skimmer way.