The Snow Queen (70 page)

The
Goodventure elder began to sway from foot to foot; the lacy drape of beaded
network that covered her clothing clattered and chimed. She began to sing the
ancient feast day invocation, and the ring of women began to circle slowly,
stepping foot across foot, drawing Moon along. The words of the litany and
response came to her easily, almost hypnotically, rooted as deeply in her
memory, wrapped as profoundly around its most primitive images, as anything she
still remembered. It had no true rhyme, like most of the holy songs, because
the language it had once been shaped from had lost its own shape down the
years; its tune fell strangely on her ears. She sang with the rest, but a part
of her mind held separate, watching the pageantry that the rest of her flowed
into unquestioningly: the part of her that was no longer certain Fate would
choose her, blindly, unaided.
Does the
sibyl mind really control what happens here? It twists me in its own
directions—but can it reach beyond my hand, can it really move anything that it
doesn’t hold on strings?

“... Who suckles us upon Her breast

And makes Herself our grave?”

“The Lady gives us all
we need.

We give her all we
can.”

Moon
watched Fate begin to drift out in a counter circle bearing the mask, her
expression intent but formless.
She won’t
recognize me
.

“Who fills our nets and pools and bellies,

Who fills our hearts with grief?”

“The Lady gives us all
we need,

And asks for all we
have.”

Moon bit
her lip against panic, against more words, the urge to cry out,
Here, here I am!
Wanting to believe that
it was predestination, but no longer certain that anything was predestined. She
couldn’t leave it to chance—not after she had come this far, and seen so much.
She has to choose me. But how—?

“Whose blessings cause the sky to weep,

Whose curse melds sea with air?”

“The Lady gives us all
we need,

And makes us what we
are.”

Moon’s
memory leaped forward to the next verse, and the two levels of her
consciousness fused:
“Input!”

“Who knows the one that She will call,

Or what their fate will be?”

The refrain
faded as she fell into Transfer, came back with a sudden intensity that
deafened her. She felt herself lurch with the shock, tried to open her eyes.
But her eyes were open, and still the world she saw was barely brighter than
moonlight, its edges blurred and indistinct. Her other senses fed her
perception all out of proportion . because she was blind! In another second she
had passed through terror to the understanding that she was—Fate Ravenglass.
And that somewhere in that dimly seen line of figures circling past her
immobile body was one that must be caught at the other pole of this Transfer
....

She watched
the dim figures pass, and pass, wondering what she would find, if she would
even be able to tell what was taking shape. And then she made out the one
figure that stumbled in line, supported, half-carried, on the arms of the
indistinguishable women at either side: herself—she was seeing herself. And
Fate Ravenglass looked back with her eyes; each of them seeing her own face and
knowing they did .... Abruptly Moon felt her borrowed body unlock and move
forward freely toward her real one, the mask held out before her in her hands.
As she closed with herself she could see at last that the face was really her
own. It stared at the mask, back at her, with wonder and wordless fascination.
She lifted the mask with Fate’s trembling hands, moved again by its beauty as
she set it firmly on her own shoulders.

As the mask
settled in place she felt herself wrenched back across the Transfer gap, into
her rightful mind, and heard her cry as she ended the trance. Looking out now
through the eye holes of the mask, she saw Fate standing dazed before her, felt
her own arms still supported by the women beside her, heard the roar of the
crowd’s jubilation. But all that she remembered of the moment was Fate touching
the face that was her own again: “My face—I saw my face. And the mask of the
Summer Queen ...”

The crowd
began to close in around them, smashing the fragile circle of hands, sweeping
away the also-rans. Moon’s support broke away as she regained her equilibrium;
she reached out and grasped Fate’s hands, holding her steady, face to face. “Fate—it’s
happened! I did it! I am the Summer Queen!”

“Yes. Yes,
I know.” Fate shook her head, tears putting light in her darkened eyes. “It was
meant to be. It was. It must be the first time two sibyls ever looked out of
each other’s eyes, and saw themselves—” She smoothed her collar of white
feathers distractedly. “You’ll be everything as Queen that I made your mask to
be.”

Moon felt
her heart squeezed by a sudden, heavy hand. “But not alone. I’ll need help.
I’ll need people my people can trust ... and yours can. Will you help me?”

The feather
collar rustled with Fate’s nod. “I’m in need of a new career. Whatever I can do
to help I’ll do gladly. Moon ... Your Majesty.”

The netted
canopy shadowed them, and the Goodventure elder came up between them, gravely
gay. “Lady!” The other Goodventures bowed around her. “Your duties today are
three: To go among the people and show them that the Mask Night has begun. To
be carefree. To rejoice. And your duties tomorrow are three: To go down to the
docks when dawn comes beyond the walls. To deliver Winter to the Sea. To rule
in her place as the Lady wills.”

To deliver Winter to the Sea
. Moon looked toward the palace. “I
understand.”

“Then come
with us, and let the people see you. Until tomorrow we are all between worlds,
between Winter and Summer, between the past and the future. And you’re the
harbinger.” The Goodventure woman gestured Moon under the waiting canopy.

“Fate, will
you come with me?”

“Oh, yes,
I’ll be along.” Fate smiled. “This may be the last time I have a chance to see
my fellow human beings in all their glory, and I want to make the most of it.”
She touched her artificial eye with a loving fingertip, and sorrow. “All my
masks, a lifetime’s work, will bloom and fade in this one night ... and soon my
sight will go into the sea with the rest of Winter’s bounty, good and bad
together.”

“No!” Moon
shook her head. “I swear to you, Fate—this will be a real Change!” The crowd
began to pry between them.

“Moon—what
about
Sparks
?”
Fate called it across the widening gap.

Moon
stretched her hand fruitlessly, losing control, lost in the mob. “I don’t know!
I don’t know—” Strong arms lifted her up onto a garlanded litter, and she was
borne away beneath the canopy down the Street, a leaf swirling on the stream.

Everywhere as
she was carried along she saw masks appearing as the revelers hid their faces,
cast off their own identities; becoming their fantasies, as the Summer Queen
had—as she had done. Tonight there would be no Winter or Summer, off worlder or
native, right or wrong. Everywhere costumes blossomed, music played,masked
faces laughed and sang and shouted for the Queen. Everywhere people followed
alongside her litter, offering her food and drink and gifts, trying simply to
touch her for luck. It was her duty today, tonight, to be the merry mayfly,
symbol of life’s fleeting joy; because not until tomorrow would her rule and
the world become genuine again .... And she was grateful for the mask she wore
that was all those things to them, that let her hide the truth that whenever
she became a part of the moment time leaped ahead again for her, and tomorrow
took away her laughter. Because if her plan had failed, if Sirus had failed
her, tomorrow she would speak the words and give the sign as Summer Queen, and
Sparks would drown ...

So she actually believes she’s going to be
chosen Summer Queen.
She hears voices telling her she’ll win
.
Jerusha paced slowly in the rattling emptiness of the Chief Justice’s
antechamber, too nervous to sit still on the forlorn assortment of abandoned
furniture.
Against odds of hundreds to
one? No, Jerusha, the universe doesn’t give a damn what she believes ... or you
do, or anybody else. It doesn’t matter.

There was
nothing to distract her mind but the fuzzy negatives of places where things had
been and no longer were in this sad, anciently naked room. But a new set of
things, and people, would be back in their place when the Change came again to
enduring Carbuncle.
Things change all the
time; but how much of it is real? Does any choice any of us ever makes, no
matter how important it seems, really cause a ripple in the greater scheme of
things?
Passing the window, she saw herself superimposed on the image of
the metamorphosing city, studied the reflection silently.

“Commander
PalaThion. It was good of you to come. I know how busy you’ve been.” Chief
Justice Hovanesse stood in the doorway, held up a hand in courteous welcome,
and she managed to forget that she had been kept pacing out here well past the
appointed time of the invitation.

She saluted.
“I’m never too busy to discuss the Hegemony’s welfare, your honor.” Or mine
. Or to watch a man eat his words ...
She touched his hand politely, and he gestured her ahead of him into the inner
room. It was a meeting room, with a long table built out of smaller tables and
cluttered with portable terminals. The usual assortment of local Hedge
bureaucrats she had come to know and loathe sat around it, intermittent with
actual assemblymen, mostly strangers to her. They had, she supposed, been
making the last of the obligatory reports on every imaginable aspect of their
occupation of Tiamat. Even on a world as unpopulated and underdeveloped as this
one the process of departure was leviathan. The few Kharemoughi faces she could
see clearly looked exceedingly bored.
Thank
the gods I’m only a Blue and not a bureaucrat.
She remembered that since
she had become Commander she had hardly been anything else.
But yesterday I was a real officer again.

She stood
listening to the patter of their applause, of palms against the table surface,
absorbing their reception while she compared it mentally to the one she had
been anticipating until yesterday. Most of the civil officials assigned here on
Tiamat were from the same part of Newhaven, like most of the police; the Hegemony
felt that cultural homogeneity made for more efficiency. And today, at least,
the fact that she was one of their own being honored in the presence of
Kharemoughis seemed to outweigh the fact that she was only a female. She bowed
with dignity, acknowledging their tribute, and took a seat in the mismatched
chair at the near end of the table.

“As I’m
sure you all have heard by now,” the Chief Justice stood at his own place,
“Commander PalaThion uncovered, and at virtually the last moment thwarted, an
attempt by Tiamat’s Snow Quee to retain her power ...”

Jerusha
listened covetously to the report, savoring every flattering adjective like the
scent of rare herbs.
Gods, I could get
used to this.
Even though Hovanesse was a Kharemoughi himself, he was aware
that as Chief Justice he reflected her glory today, and he was laying it on
thick. He sipped frequently from a translucent cup; she wondered whether it was
really water, or something to numb the pain of paying her compliments. “...
Even though, as most of us here are aware, there was a certain amount
of—controversy about appointin a woman Commander of Police, I think she has
proved that she is capable of rising to a challenge. I doubt if our original
choice for the post, Chief Inspector Mantagnes, could have handled the
situation any better if their positions had been reversed.”

That’s for damn sure
. Jerusha glanced down in false
modesty, hiding the glass fragments in her smile. “I was just doing my job,
your honor; as I’ve tried to do it all along.”
With no help from you, I could add.
She bit her tongue.

“Nevertheless,
Commander,” one of the Assembly members stood up expansively, “you’ll finish
your service here with a commendation on your record. You’re a credit to your
world and your gender.” One or two Newhavenese coughed at that. “It just goes
to show that no one world, or race, or sex, has a complete monopoly on
intelligence; all can and shall contribute to the greater good of the Hegemony,
if not equally, at least according to their individual abilities..”

“Who writes
the graffiti inside his braincase?” the Director of Public Health muttered
sourly.

“I don’t
know,” behind her hand, “but he’s living proof that living for centuries
doesn’t have to teach you anything.” She saw his mouth twitch and his eyes roll
in a fleeting moment of comradely aggravation.

“Would you
care to say a few words, Commander?”

Jerusha
flinched, until she realized the assemblyman hadn’t even been aware of anyone
speaking besides himself. Don’t let me choke, gods. “Uh, thank you, sir. I didn’t
really come here planning to make a speech, and I really don’t have the time.”
But wait a minute—
“But since I’ve got
you all here listening to me, maybe there is a matter important enough to spend
our time on.” She stood up, leaning forward on the slightly uneven tabletop. “A
few weeks ago I had a very disturbing question put to me: a question about the
mers—the Tiamatan creatures we get the water of life from,” for the benefit of
any assemblyman who was or pretended to be ignorant of it. “I was told that the
Old Empire created the mers to be creatures with human-level intelligence. The
man who told me this had the information directly from a sibyl Transfer.”