The Snow Queen

by Joan D. Vinge

  She tried to curb her irritation, knowing that only patience and time would bring him out of his despondent brooding. But it had been weeks since he had acted like a man; since he had tried to make love to her, touched her, even smiled at her. Her resentment smouldered, leaving her with no stomach for coddling his sullen bad temper. “I want to know when you’ll be finishing your duty as Hunter.”

  “My duty?” He shifted in the swivel seat, his eyes leaping like a hart, searching for cover in the wilderness of electronics gear. “I’ve done it all,” bitterly.

  “You haven’t made the payment. The Source is waiting for the water of life. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that unless he gets it Winter will end—and so will our lives.”

  “And half of Summer will die ... Summer will end forever.” His green eyes met hers again, dull with anguish.

  “So I hope.” She forced her gaze past the barriers and into his unwilling mind. “You aren’t pretending this is the first time that’s occurred to you, are you?”

  “No.” He shook his head; his red hair brushed the links of silvered chain that caught the shoulders of his loose-hanging shirt. “I’ve thought about it every day, and dreamed it—”

  “Pleasant dreams,” she said sardonically.

  “No!” She remembered the nightmares, the ones that he had refused to discuss with her. “Get someone else to make the delivery. I’ve done my duty, I’m choking on Winter’s dirty work. I draw the line at giving that rotting off worlder slug eternal life for destroying my own people.”

  “You’re no Summer! And you’re paying for your own life, and mine.” Arienrhod leaned across the work table, reaching out. “You can’t crawl back into a Summer shell; you outgrew that long ago. You’ve killed your sacred mers, you’ve left your Summer love dead with their corpses. You abandoned your people and your goddess years ago—for something better! Remember that! You are an off worlder now, and my lover. And like it or not, you will be until you die.”

  Starbuck pushed to his feet, sweeping the clatter and blink off of the table with his fist. Arienrhod stepped back as she realized he had only just kept that rage from striking out at her.

  “Then I’d just as soon die now.” He clenched his hands on the table edge, leaning forward with his head down. “And finish what I’ve started.”

  “Sparks.” His name rose out of her deepest heart, where the hot pain of his suffering reached her dimly. But he did not respond. She could not reach him any more; he had shut her out. “Starbuck!” The suffering became her own, and the pain became her anger. He did look up this time, with his face hard and clenched. There was nothing of Sparks in the look; only a ghost lying behind it: the ghost of lost Moon, her own lost other ness Moon, whose death was his fault, and who had taken his love for the both of them with her into the grave. Arienrhod felt his reality, shrouded by the ghost of Moon, become the focus for failure’s burning glass: jail ure The word left a smoking track across her inner sight. “You will deliver the water of life, and I want it done soon. Your Queen commands it.”

  His mouth thinned. It was the first time she had ever commanded him; the first time he had ever forced her to. “And if I refuse?”

  “Then I’ll give you to the off worlders Refusing to let him defy her, she pulled at the sliding reins of her control. “And you’ll spend the rest of your life in a penal colony wishing that you had died at the Change.”

  Starbuck’s mouth dropped open. His eyes felt her face like a blind man’s hands, until at last he knew that she meant every word. He bowed his head in surrender, helpless under the weight of his own self-hatred.

  She knew then that she could make him do anything ... and that in winning this victory she had lost him forever.

  - 38 -

  Moon woke suddenly with a sigh in the warm embrace of someone’s arms. Sparkie, I had such a strange dream ... She opened her eyes, jerked at the unexpectedness of the room opening out before her. And remembering, she looked down along her side to find a warm brown arm freckled with pink secure beneath her own. For just a moment pain caught inside her; but then she smiled, without guilt or regret, twining her fingers in his. She shifted carefully on the narrow bed-sofa to study BZ’s sleeping face, remembering how he had watched over her in the silent dawns. Remembering the poems of his heart that he spoke to her wondering ears, as he gave himself to her at last, my star, white bird, wildflower garden ... until she had cried out the words that she had no right to say, and no power to deny, I love you, I love you ...

  She stroked his cheek, but he did not stir; rested her head on his shoulder. Here in this room, this space apart from their separate lives, they had shared love, and they had given each other something else as precious—an affirmation of their own value.

  The sounds of the Festival still reached her, muted but unchanging; the level of light flowing in through the window had not changed either. (“I’ve never done this in the light,” he had murmured. “We’re so beautiful ... Why was I ashamed?”) She had no feel for whether it was night or day, or how long they had slept. Her body was sluggish and unwilling, telling her it had not been long enough. But she couldn’t afford any more time. BZ still slept like the dead, and she moved out from under his arm as quietly as she could, without trying to wake him; certain that she could find her way as far as the mask maker alley alone. She dressed and slipped out the door.

  The crowds seemed as vibrant, as endless, as before, as though one shift of revelers merged imperceptibly into the next, an infinite wheel. She kept as close to the building walls as she could, forcing her way through the eddying backwaters around vendors’ booths and outdoor cafes. She grabbed a piece of spiced meat from a table as she passed, choked it down, her throat tight and her mind sparking with the feedback of sheer energy from every side.

  At last she broke through into the Citron Alley, where the crowd current slowed and grew less deep. She found her way to the go tanery entrance, went one more shop to the mask maker Its yellow green double door was firmly shut; she beat on the upper half with her fist, throwing all her frustration and urgency into it. “Open up! Open up!”

  The top half of the door opened, catching her in mid-cry; she ended with a laugh of triumph. A middle-aged woman with dark hair in a heavy plait looked out at her, through her, with eyes sleep reddened ... with eyes that did not see her. “Yes, who is it?” wearily, a little impatiently.

  “Are you—are you Fate Ravenglass, the mask maker She wondered what she had been expecting, relieved that this woman wasn’t it.

  “Yes.” The woman rubbed her face. “But all my masks are gone. You’ll have to go to one of the displays to look at them. There are warehouses and vacant stores full of them all over the city.”

  “No, I don’t want a mask. I want to ask you about—Sparks. Sparks Dawntreader.”

  “Sparks?” The reaction she had waited for, prayed for, filled the woman’s face. She opened the bottom of the door. “Come in then! Come in.”

  Moon entered the shop, blinked with the dimming of light. As her eyes readjusted, she saw boxes and baskets piled in precisely ordered confusion in the room’s four quarters—remnants of cloth, face forms, feathers, bangles, beads. Her foot skidded on a bead as she moved forward; she picked it up carefully and held it in her hand. The walls of the room were empty now, but they bristled with hooks where a hundred masks must have hung like rare flowers until only two or three days ago ... The last wall space was not empty. On it hung one mask all alone, and she stood staring, transfixed by the shimmering vision of a summer’s day: mist-rainbows reflecting in pied pools, emerald-velvet moss underfoot and the green-gold silk of new grasses springing up on the hillsides; hoards of wildflowers, frag ant with life, berries and birds’ wings dappled with shadow; and in their midst a face of radiant innocence captive to wonder, crowned by the rays of the twin suns. “Is that—the Summer Queen?” she whispered, awed.

  The woman turned to face it instinctively. “That is her mask. Who she will be, he
rself, is still a mystery known only to the gods.”

  “To the Lady,” Moon said, without thinking.

  “Yes, of course.” The mask maker smiled a little sadly; Moon realized all the things this mask would mean to a Winter, and that none of them were the same things that moved her.

  “You’ve made her so beautiful; when she’s come to take your life away.”

  “Thank you.” The woman smiled again, proudly this time. “But that’s the price any artist pays—to lose a part of herself each time she creates something she hopes will live on after her. And perhaps if I make her fair and kind, the Summer Queen will fulfill the prophecy, and be those things to us.”

  “She will,” Moon murmured. But she won’t understand you—so how can she be?

  “Now, tell me, Summer girl”—Moon glanced around in half surprise—”why you’ve come asking about Sparks Dawntreader.”

  “I’m his cousin, Moon Dawntreader.”

  “Moon!” The mask maker frowned at nothing. “Wait, wait just a minute.” She went surely through a doorway into another room, and was back in a moment wearing a peculiar headband. “He told me so much about you, the two of you. Come over by the door, where I can see you better with my ‘third eye.”“

  Moon obeyed. The woman held her with her face to the light, slowly grew rigid. “Sparks said that you were like her ... like her ...” She seemed to shiver suddenly.

  “Like who?” Moon forced the words out through stiff lips.

  “Like Arienrhod, like the Snow Queen. But I’ve seen you, another time, in another place, somewhere.” She lifted her hand to map ^ Moon’s face with sensitive fingertips, keeping her from asking another question. Fate led her back inside to the one round, glue dribbled table with chairs that was all the room’s real furniture. “Where have I seen you, Moon?” A large gray cat appeared out of nowhere on the tabletop, came to sniff questioningly at Moon’s hands. Moon scratched him absently under the chin.

  “I—I don’t think you have.” Moon sat down, following Fate’s motion, unclenched her fist and laid the single red bead on the table.

  Fate’s breath caught. “Yes. You’re a sibyl.”

  Moon’s hands flew to her throat. “No—”

  “Your cousin told me; it’s all right.” Fate shook her head reassuringly. “Your secret is safe. And it means I can trust you with mine now.” She pulled down the high neckline of her sleeping gown, exposing her throat.

  Moon felt her own breath stop. “You’re a sibyl, here? But how? How do you dare?” She remembered Danaquil Lu, and the scars he wore as a warning.

  “I have a very—select clientele.” Fate turned her face away. “Maybe that’s selfish of me, maybe I’m not doing all I can with the gift, but ... I feel that there is a need for me to be here, somehow. As an ... outlet, if nothing else.” Her hands found a stray feather on the tabletop. She picked it up, running it between her fingers. The cat watched her, its ears flickering. “I have strange ideas about sibyls, you see; maybe they’re absurd, but ...” Her shoulders twitched.

  Moon leaned forward. “You mean, you think there might be sibyls on other worlds than this one?”

  The feather fluttered down, the cat pounced. “Yes! Oh, by the gods, have you felt it too?” Fate reached out for reassurance.

  “I’ve seen it.” Moon touched her hand. “I met a sibyl on another world. There are sibyls everywhere, part of an information network the Old Empire left to help us now. The Hegemony lies to us.”

  “I thought as much—I knew there was something more! Yes, it makes so much sense.” Her smile was a candle being lit in darkness. “Is that where I saw you, then? On another world? Asking about him ...”

  “I did ask about him! That’s why I came back. Then it was you who told me about him ...” That he loved someone else. “That it wasn’t finished yet, that he needed me,” raising her voice to drown out doubt’s. ”But how do you know that? Can we remember what we say, and see? I’ve never been called.”

  “Yes, you remember it. Clearly.” Fate smiled at the memory of clear sight. “It happens to me rather often, and that’s why I feel I’m needed here. I may be the only answer there is to questions about Carbuncle. And that’s why I began to suspect there was more to us than anyone pretended to know. How could the Hedge not know what we did was real?”

  “There are a lot of things they lie about.” The mers ... is that the real reason they don’t want us in Carbuncle—so no one can prove that they’ve lied about the mers? And about how many other things? “But we could change that, now that we know the truth. When the off worlders go—”

  “Then Summer will reign, and they won’t listen.”

  “I listened.” Moon felt her gaze drawn away to the mask on the wall. Would they listen to a sibyl Queen? A tingling excitement ran along her nerves from spine to fingertips. “Fate, in Transfer you said ... you said I could be the Queen. What did it mean?”

  “That was years ago ...” Fate pressed a hand over her sensor eye. “I suppose I meant that you looked like Arienrhod.” She took her hand away, looking toward the mask on the wall. “But—maybe not. I called you back; it seemed important. If you ran the race with the others on the day of choosing, who can say? You could be chosen Queen.”

  “How long is it until they choose?”

  “It’s the day that leads into the Mask Night—the day after tomorrow.”

  Moon wove her tingling hands together, completing the circuit, felt the current of terrifying certainty surge through her. This is the reason. This is why I’ve come. To make this a real Change, to open the circle ... “Yes, I can; I know I can! I was meant to!” Possibilities exploded inside her eyes.

  But it won’t save Sparks. The fire of revelation drowned in the cold waters of truth. There would be no rebirth without death; she would have no power until the Snow Queen died ... “But that’s why I came!” She shook her head angrily; Fate’s face turned quizzical, listening. “Fate, I came to find Sparks, I want to help him, if I can. If he still needs me, if he even wants me ...” She faltered.

  “You know—what he’s become?”

  “Yes. I know. I know everything.” She pulled on a braid, hurting herself. “Starbuck.”

  Fate nodded, her face drawing down. She pulled the cat into her lap. “He isn’t the boy you knew any more. But you aren’t the girl he left in Summer either. And he does need you, Moon, he needs you desperately; he always has, or he would never have turned to Arienrhod. Find him, and save him if you can. It matters very much to me.”

  “And to me.” Moon jarred the table. “But I don’t know how to find him. That’s why I came to you. Can you help me find him, can you bring him here? There’s hardly any time.” Today and two more days, until he dies—three days to search a whole city.

  “I know.” Fate shook her head, looking down. “But he comes here at his whim, not mine. A. d I don’t know ... Wait.” Searching, she found the red bead, picked it up. “There is someone else who sees him more than I do. Her name is Tor Starhiker, and she runs the casino called Persiponë’s. She calls herself Persiponë; ask for her by that name. Are you here alone?”

  “No.” Moon smiled. “I have someone,” realizing that she had been away from him far longer than she had meant to be. “I’d better get back and tell him what I’ve learned.” She stood up, hesitated. “Thank you for helping me. And thank you for being Sparks’s friend when I couldn’t be.” She longed for the time to hear all that had passed between them through that long brief gap of years. “May the Lady smile on you,” shyly.

  “May She smile on us all. But especially on you, now.” Fate smiled.

  Moon looked a last time at the mask of the Summer Queen before she went out the door.

  She reached the rooming house where she had left BZ at last, burst in through the windowed door, breathless with elation and relief.

  “Moon!” BZ stood in the narrow hallway, the tail of his ragged shirt half tucked in. His landlady stood beside him, overpowering
his frail official presence with her own, midway through a shrug of denial. BZ pushed past her, ran to catch Moon in his arms, lifting her off her feet. “Gods! Where the hell have you been? I thought—”

  “I went to the mask maker She laughed her surprise as he set her down again. “Stop, you shouldn’t—”

  “The mask maker Alone? Why?” He frowned disapproval, but his face showed her only concern.

  “I knew the way. You needed the rest.” She smiled until he smiled with her. “I found her. And BZ, you won’t believe this—” She broke off, remembering the landlady still listening intently behind his back. BZ glanced over his shoulder, cleared his throat.

  “Ah” right, all right, Inspector.” The woman raised her hands in good-natured surrender. “I can take a hint.” She eased past them toward her own apartment door. “You had him worried.” She winked unsubtly. “Keep him worried and he won’t go off world without you, child!” She opened her door and went in; it closed behind her.

  BZ glanced ceiling ward away from Moon’s embarrassment and his own. He moved them further down the hall. “Now tell me. You found her?”

  “Yes! And BZ—when KR Aspundh went into Transfer, she was the one who told me to come back.”

  It took a moment to register. “She’s a sibyl? Here?”

  Moon nodded, missing the undertones of his incredulity. “The only one, for the whole galaxy—”

  “What did you tell her?” He was suddenly angry.

  This time she understood; old resentment and fresh disappointment darkened her eyes. She stepped back, away from him. “I told her I wanted to find Sparks.” And that’s all you have the right to know.

  “I didn’t mean that.” He muffled a cough, muzzling his bad temper. “I—I was afraid you’d left me,” ashamed and awkward, “without even saying goodbye.”

  Knowing that he knew it wasn’t the whole truth, she accepted it; because she knew that he wished it were. “BZ, how could I ever ... not to you. Not to you.” She took his hands in hers, in promise, and kissed him with gentle grief. He let her go reluctantly, suddenly obsessed with the disorder of his shut. “So what did you find out? Has she seen him?”