Authors: Joan D. Vinge
The
white-braided girl in a nomad’s tunic looked at her in strange confusion, and
the look was enough to convince her that she was wrong. But the girl stayed put
in front of her, oblivious to the crowd’s jostling as it eddied past. “Are you
Persipone?”
She smiled
garishly. “Only a cheap imitation, kid. But by the gods, you’re a high-priced
copy of the Queen.”
“I ... uh—”
The girl didn’t seem very flattered at the comparison. “Fate sent me.”
Tor laughed
nervously. “Gods, I hope not ... Oh! You mean Fate Ravenglass?”
The girl
nodded. “My name is Moon Dawntreader. She said
you ;
know my cousin
“Sparks!
Yeah, I certainly do.” She felt an irrational relief rush I her, pushed away
from the pillar.
Hell and devils, I’m way
too high tonight.
“Come on, let’s get out of the stampede.” She realized
for the first time that the girl wasn’t alone; a scarecrow Kharemoughi stood
behind her like a shadow, wearing a Blue’s jacket with inspector’s insignia.
Her heart leaped into her throat, irrationally again, before she saw that the
rest of him was strictly nonregulation, saw the stains on his jacket front. The
stains looked like dried blood. The possibility did not reassure her.
Don’t ask; just don’t ask.
She pointed,
led them on through the casino. Moon Dawntreader gawked like a rube at the game
effects drifting through her in the air, at the astounding extremes of clothing
and the extremes of behavior that went with them; at the blaring,
mind-battering totality of a gambling hell being experienced by a virgin soul.
She heard the girl’s half-shout thinned by the throbbing music: “Look at us!”
They were passing through the spillover of a hologrammic Black Gate, engulfed
in flaming flotsam. “I never saw anything like this on Kharemough, not even in
the Thieves’ Market!”
Tor looked
back in surprise; the fallen Blue said, feelingly, “And you never will!” Tor
shook her head and went on.
She led
them through into the dim, gossamer-draped hallway where the prostitutes took their
clients—the quietest, most private place she could think of offhand. Looking
fruitlessly for an unoccupied room, she saw that
^
room and
gone on duty at the bar. She pounded on his door with the flat of her hand.
“Hey, beautiful, your fans are waiting for you! Let’s go!”
The door
opened.
corroding pretty-boy face glared at her and past her with undifferentiated
loathing. “Why don’t you take a—” His gaze landed on Moon; his expression
changed and changed and changed again. “My gods!” The final change was pure
fury. “What are you doing here? You bitch, you goddamn back-stabbing bitch! I
knew you’d come someday—you couldn’t enjoy destroying me unless you saw it for
yourself—”
“Herne!”
Tor blocked him as he would have gone for the girl. “What the hell’s wrong with
you, are you sky wheeling She’s a total stranger.”
“You think
I don’t know Arienrhod when I see her? I know your Snow Queen, I slept with her
for years! Didn’t I, you white whore?”
“I’m not
the Queen,” Moon said feebly.
“She’s not,
Herne!” Tor cut him off before he could start again. “Shut up and use your
bloodshot eyes, you jerk. She’s only a Summer, come looking for her cousin. You
never saw her before; and I bet my life you never saw the Queen, either, let
alone laid her. She’s got better taste.”
“What do
you know about it?” Herne said. “You don’t know a damn thing about her, or me!”
He straightened up against the door frame, smoothed the wrinkles out of his
garish over shirt trying to stand with some dignity. “I was Starbuck—until she
sold me out for that weakling, Dawntreader.”
“Dawntreader!”
Tor gaped at Herne. “I don’t believe it!” That punk extortionist—had he been
bleeding information out of her for five years to stay in good with the Snow
Queen? Was it possible? Was it possible Herne wasn’t lying about himself,
either; had Dawntreader been using her just to use him? She rubbed her face,
dislodging a sequin, smearing the tendrils painted on her cheek.
“Sparks
Dawntreader is my cousin,” Moon said, ignoring Herne’s fierce scrutiny. “I know
he’s become Starbuck; I want to find him before it’s too late.”
“Your
cousin?” Herne frowned, ignoring the rest. “Yeah ... there’s something about
you: You disappeared ...” He scratched his side, as if he could scratch the
memory loose. The drugs he used for the boredom and pain were turning his brain
soft. “And you’re like her.” His eyes held hungry demons. “Just like her.”
“Don’t
waste your breath on that drug-soaked liar,” the renegade Blue said
impatiently. “He’s insane. No Kharemoughi lowborn has enough talent to make
himself Starbuck.”
Herne
seemed to notice him for the first time, stared at him while an ugly grin
spread wider. “I remember the day I taught you how to kneel to your betters at
the Queen’s court, Blue.” The other man jerked with recognition. “You were too
good for her, for me, then, weren’t you, Gundhalinu-
mekru
? And look at you now!” He waved a hand at the Blue’s
disreputable clothing. “You must have been crawling on your belly,
mekritto
. You’re not fit to speak to
me!”
The Blue
struggled to keep the words in, but they got past him. “I’m still a better man
than you’ll ever be, you dung heap bastard!”
“You’re
still a bigger ass. Thank the gods for that!” Herne spat, just as the next door
down the hall opened.
“Hey, watch
it!” The prostitute led her aggrieved client past them quickly, glaring.
“Well, are
you going to get to work, or not?” Tor put her hands on her hips, feeling them
slide on the silky cloth of her body wrap adding her own withering stare.
“Not. Not
till I hear more about this.” He bent his head at Moon. “Why Arienrhod’s double
has come looking for Arienrhod’s lover.” He backed clumsily into his room, a
travesty of gracious invitation. Tor followed with the others.
She had
never seen the inside of his room before, and she had the feeling that she
still wasn’t seeing it. The room held a bed and a storage cupboard, like any
other room on this hall, and that was all. A few dirty clothes thrown into a
corner, nothing more. No picture on the wall, no books or tapes, no radio or
threedy It was a room for a night—worse, a prison cell. Herne collapsed onto
the bed, his steel-wrapped legs protruding. No one made a move to join him
there; Moon and Gundhalinu looked at his legs while trying not to. “So what do
you want with Sparks Dawntreader after so long, pretty cousin?”
“We’re
pledged.” Moon faced down the dark insinuation in his eyes. “I love him. I
don’t want him to die.”
Herne
laughed. “Oh, yeah. Arienrhod found his vows of faith fulness a real challenge;
you ought to be proud. But she always gets what she wants in the end. How about
you?”
Moon
stiffened, clutching her belt. “I’ll get my way. But I have to find him first.
Fate said maybe you’d know how—” She turned back to Tor.
Tor
shrugged, apologetic. “You just missed him; he came to see the Source.”
And I wondered why. Why would Starbuck come?
Why would the
Queen ...
?
“Her plot
gets thicker and thicker.” Herne grinned obscurely.
And he knew
Tor frowned inside her thoughts.
What else does he know that he never told
me?
“What do
you mean, I just missed him?”
She
refocused on Moon’s frustrated face. “He came from the palace with a message,
about an hour ago.”
“And he
left again with a couple of Blues on his tail,” Herne said smugly.
“What?” Tor
raised her silver-dusted eyebrows.
“The
Commander,” Gundhalinu said. “She must have put out an alert on him, now that
she knows who he is.”
“What
happened to him?” Moon’s fists twisted the painted belt leather. “Did they
catch him?”
Herne
grunted, amused. “Hah. Those suckers couldn’t catch cold,” for Gundhalinu. “He
got away into the crowd. But if he’s a smart boy he’ll stick to the palace
where Arienrhod can protect him from now until the Change.”
“He can’t!
He can’t do that ... Damn her!”
Tor saw the
Blue try to comfort Moon, saw her twitch his arm off her shoulders, and the
look on his face. Herne saw it, too, and smiled. Skeptical, Tor said, “Listen,
if you were so devoted to him, kid, why did it take you five years to get
around to this in the first place?”
“It hasn’t
been years, just months!” Moon shut her eyes, head back. “Why couldn’t it have
been the other way around? Why does it just keep getting harder?”
“Because
you’re approaching Arienrhod,”
“She was
kidnapped off world by smugglers five years ago,” Gundhalinu ran over
“She just got back.
She nearly
died trying to get to Carbuncle to find him. Is that devoted enough for you?”
Tor quirked
her mouth, softening against her will. “It seems to be good enough for you, off
worlder
You
poor lovesick bleeder
. “And good enough
for Fate. But she’s going to have to go to the palace if she wants to find him
now.”
“She
can’t,” Gundhalinu said.
“Why not?”
Moon looked at him. “I can slip into the palace and find him. If that’s what I
have to do, I’ll do it.” Her eyes changed, grew dim and unseeing, as though she
were having a seizure; when they cleared again resolution glittered. “It’s
right—I will go there! I have to. I’m not afraid of Arienrhod.”
“And why
should you be?”
“Shut up,
pervert! I’ll tell you why.” Gundhalinu caught Moon’s arm. “Because
Arienrhod—because she ... because she’s—dangerous,” stupidly. Tor wondered, and
Moon half-frowned. “She’s got guards all over the palace, and if she caught you
trying to come between her and Starbuck ... damn it, shed stop you! How the
hell are you even going to find him, you can’t just go asking who’s seen him!”
“Why can’t
she?”
for—Arienrhod’s face. She can do anything, and nobody’ll question it.”
“What about
the real Queen?” Tor said.
“She’ll be
entertaining the high lords of the Hedge, if you time it right. And I’ve got
the thing that’ll make you perfect in the part.”
“What is
it?” Moon moved forward, bright with hope. Gundhalinu looked knives over her
shoulder.
But
her; it moved slowly down her body and rose again to her face. Tor felt the
static charge building between opposite poles inside him. “Spend an hour alone
with me, Arienrhod, and it’s yours.”
Moon paled
into an alabaster statue. Gundhalinu’s freckles turned scarlet with outrage.
“What are
you going to do, Starbuck?” Tor jabbed vindictively. “Teach her how to play
cards?”
saw what had happened to his face, she came closer to pitying him than she had
ever come. “For gods’ sakes,
be a crud, for once in your life! Do something to prove you’ve got a right to
be alive.”
emotion; but she saw it drain away, and he looked back at Moon again. “In
there.” He pointed at the storage cupboard. “Open it.”
Moon went
to the cupboard and pulled open the door. Tor saw clothes, and drugs, and
half-empty bottles, and one shelf that was entirely empty except for a small
black object.
“That’s it.
Bring it here.”
Moon took
it to him, handed it over, keeping her distance. He held it in the palm of his
hand almost as if it were alive, stroking its surfaces with uncertain fingers.
He touched a colored key, and then another, and another. Three changing notes
sounded, loud in the cramped room’s silence.
“What does
it control?” Gundhalinu asked.
“The wind.”
at them all with defiant pride. “In the Hall of the Winds at Arienrhod’s
palace. She has the only other one of these there is now. You’ll be able to get
into the heart of the palace this way without anybody suspecting anything,”
watching Moon again. “I’ll teach you how to use it, and where to look for
Starbuck.”
“In return
for what?” Moon’s hands closed over the desire to hold the box again, but her
face was set for refusal.
yours by right ... and when could I ever refuse you anything you wanted? Or
give you anything you wouldn’t have, no matter how hard I tried ...”