The Snow Queen (32 page)

Moon
realized that she had been holding her breath, let it out suddenly. “Yes! I
mean, I—I expected it. Everyone here knows I’m a sibyl; how could they know?
You’re a sibyl; and you’ve never heard of the Lady.” She had long ago stopped
seeing the Sea Mother literally, a beautiful woman with seaweed hair, clad in
spume, rising from the waves in a mer-drawn shell. But even the formless,
elemental force she had sometimes felt touch her soul would not have left Her
element or journeyed so far. If in fact she had ever even felt anything, beyond
her own longing to feel ... “You have so many gods, you off worlders She was
too numbed by loss and change to feel one more blow. “Why do you have so many?”

“Because
there are so many worlds; each world has at least one, and usually many, of its
own. “My gods or your gods,” they say, ‘who knows which are the real ones?” So
we worship them all, just to be sure.”

“But how
could the Old Empire put sibyls everywhere, if no god did? Weren’t they only humans?”

“They
were.” He reached out to the bowl of sugared fruits in the mil table center.
“But in some ways they had the power of gods. They III could travel between
worlds directly, in weeks or months, not years —they had hyper light
communicators and star drives And yet their Empire fell apart in the end ...
even they overextended themselves. Or so we think.”

But even as
the Empire fell, some remarkable and selfless group had created a storehouse, a
data bank, of the Empire’s learning in every area of human knowledge. They had
hoped that with all of humanity’s discoveries recorded in one central,
inviolable place, they would make the impending collapse of their civilization
less complete, and the rebuilding that much swifter. And because they realized
that technical collapse might be virtually total on many worlds, they had
devised the simplest outlets for their data bank that they could conceive
of—human beings. Sibyls, who could transmit their receptivity directly to their
chosen successors, blood to blood.

Moon’s
fingers felt the scar on her wrist. “But ... how can someone’s blood show you
what’s in a—a machine on some other world? I don’t believe it!”

“Call it a
divine infection. You understand infection?”

She nodded.
“When someone is sick, you stay away from them.”

“Exactly. A
sibyl’s ‘infection’ is a man-made disease, a biochemical reaction so
sophisticated that we’ve barely begun to unravel its subtleties. It creates, or
perhaps implants, certain restructurings in the brain tissue that make a sibyl
receptive to a faster-than-light communication medium. You become a receiver,
and a transmitter. You communicate directly with the original data source.
That’s where you are when you drown in nothingness: within the computer’s
circuits, not lost in space—or with other sibyls living on other worlds, who
have answers to questions the Old Empire never thought to ask.” He lifted his
glass to her with an encouraging smile. “All this verbalizing makes me dry.”

Moon
watched the trefoil turn against the rich, gold-threaded brown of his robe; saw
her own turning silently, exiled, on a hook in an air-conditioned room
somewhere high overhead. “Is it the disease that makes people go mad, then?
It’s death to kill a sibyl ... death to love a sibyl—” She broke off, touching
the cool stones along the table edge.

He raised
his eyebrows. “Is that what they say on Tiamat? We have that saying too; though
we don’t take it literally any more. Yes, for some people infection with the
‘disease’ does cause madness. Sibyls are chosen for certain personality traits,
and emotional stability is one ... and of course a sibyl’s blood can transmit
the disease. So can saliva—but usually the other person must have an open wound
to become infected. Obviously it isn’t ‘death to love a sibyl,” with reasonable
care, or you wouldn’t have seen my daughter today. I suppose the superstition
was fostered in order to protect sibyls from harm in less civilized societies.
The very symbol we wear, the barbed trefoil, is a symbol for biological
contamination; it’s one of the oldest symbols known to man.”

But she
heard nothing after—”It isn’t death to love a sibyl? Then
Sparks
... we don’t have to be apart. We can
live together! El sevier!” Moon hugged the old woman until she gasped. “Thank
you! Thank you for bringing me here—you’ve saved my life. Between the sea and
the sky, there’s nothing I won’t do for you!”

“What’s
this?” Aspundh leaned on his fist, bemused. “Who is this
Sparks
? A romance?”

Elsevier pushed
Moon away to arm’s length and held her there gently. “Oh, Moon, my dear child,”
she said with inexplicable sorrow, “I don’t want to have to hold you to that
promise.”

Moon
twisted her head, not understanding. “We were pledged, but he went away when I
became a sibyl. But now, when I go back I can tell him—”

“Go back?
To Tiamat?” Aspundh straightened.

“Moon,”
Elsevier whispered, “we can’t take you back.” The words rushed out like a
flight of birds.

“I know, I
know I have to wait until—” She beat the words away.

“Moon,
listen to her!” The shock of Cress’s broken silence stopped it.

“What?” She
went slack in Elsevier’s grip. “You said we would—”

“We’re
never going back to Tiamat, Moon. We never meant to, we can’t. And neither can
you.” Elsevier’s lip trembled. “I lied to you,” looking away, searching for an
easy way, finding none. “It’s all been a monstrous lie. I’m—sorry.” She let go
of Moon’s arms.

“But why?”
Moon brushed distraughtly at her hair, strands of cobweb tickling her face.
“Why?”

“Because
it’s too late. Tiamat’s Gate is closing, becoming too unstable for a small ship
like ours to pass through safely. It ... hasn’t been months since we left
Tiamat, Moon. It’s been more than two years. It will be just as long going
back.”

“That’s a
lie! We weren’t on the ship for years.” Moon pushed up onto her knees as
comprehension melted and ran down around her. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I
should have done it at the beginning.” Elsevier’s hand covered her eyes. Cress
said something to Aspundh in rapid Sandhi.

“She isn’t
lying to you, Moon.” Aspundh sat back, unconsciously separating himself from
them. Elsevier translated his words dully. “Ship’s time is not the same as time
on the outside. It moves more slowly. Look at me, look at Elsevier—and remember
that I was younger than TJ by many years. Moon, if you returned to Tiamat now
you would have been missing for nearly five years.”

“No ... no,
no!” She struggled to her feet, wrenching loose as Cress tried to hold her
down. She crossed the room to the window, stood gazing out on the gardens and
sky with her forehead pressed hard against the pane. Her breath curtained the
glass with ephemeral frost, making her eyes snow blind “I won’t stay on this
world. You can’t keep me here! I don’t care if it’s been a hundred years—I have
to go home!” She clenched her hands; her knuckles squeaked on the glass. “How
could you do this to me, when you knew?” turning furiously. “I trusted you!
Damn your ship, and all your gods damn you!”

Aspundh was
standing now beside the low table; he came slowly toward her across the room.
“Look at them, Moon.” He spoke quietly, almost conversationally. “Look at their
faces, and tell me they wanted your life to ruin.”

She forced
her unwilling eyes back to the three still sitting at the table—one face
inscrutable, one bowed with shame, one winking with the track of acid-drop
tears. She did not answer; but it was enough. He led her back to the table.

“Moon,
please understand, please believe me ... it’s because your happiness is so
important to me that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.” Elsevier’s voice was
thin and brittle. “And because I wanted you to stay.”

Moon stood
silently, feeling her face as rigid and cold as a mask. Elsevier looked away
from it. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know.”
Moon forced the words out past frozen lips. “I know you are. But it doesn’t
change anything.” She sank down among the pillows, strengthless but still
unforgiving.

“The wrong
has been done, sister-in-law,” Aspundh said. “And the question remains—what
will you do to repair it?”

“Anything
within my power.”

“Our
power,” Cress said.

“Then take
me home, Elsevier!”

“I can’t.
All the reasons I gave you are true. It’s too late. But we can give you a new
life.”

“I don’t
want a new life. I want the old one.”

“Five
years, Moon,” Cress said. “How will you find him, after five years?”

“I don’t
know.” She brought her fists together. “But I have to go back to Tiamat! It
isn’t finished. I can feel it, it isn’t finished!” Something resonated in the
depths of her mind; a distant bell. “If you can’t take me, there must be a ship
that can. Help me find one—”

“They
couldn’t take you either.” Cress shifted among the cushions. “It’s forbidden;
once you leave Tiamat, the law says you can’t go home again. Your world is
proscribed.”

“They can’t—”
She felt her fury rising.

“They can,
youngster.” Aspundh held up his hand. “Only tell me, what do you mean, ‘it
isn’t finished?” How do you know that?”

“I—I don’t
know.” She looked down, disconcerted.

“Just that you
don’t want to believe it’s finished.”

“No, I
know!” suddenly, fiercely certain. “I just don’t know-how.”

“I see.” He
frowned, more with consternation than disapproval.

“She
can’t,” Cress murmured. “Can she?”

“Sometimes
it happens.” Aspundh looked somber. “We are the hands of the sibyl-machine.
Sometimes it manipulates us to its own ends. I think we should at least try to
learn whether her leaving has made any difference, if we can.”

Moon’s eyes
fixed on him in disbelief, like the rest.

Cress
laughed tightly beside her. “You mean it—acts on its own? Why? How?”

“That’s one
of the patterns we’re still trying to relearn. It can be damnably inscrutable,
as I’m sure you know. But anything able to perform all its functions would
almost have to possess some kind of sentience.”

Moon sat
impatiently, only half listening, half understanding. “How can I learn
that—whether I have to go back?”

“You have
the key, sibyl. Let me ask, and you’ll have the answer.”

“You mean
... No, I can’t! I can’t!” She grimaced.

He settled
onto his knees, smoothing his silver-wire hair. “Then ask, and I will answer.
Input ...” His eyes faded as he fell into Transfer.

She
swallowed, taken by surprise, said self-consciously, “Tell me what—what will
happen if I, Moon Dawntreader, never go back to Tiamat?”

She watched
his eyes blink with sudden amazement, search the light-dappled corners of the
room, come back to their faces, to hers alone—”You, Moon Dawntreader, sibyl,
ask this? You are the one. The same one ... but not the same. You could be her,
you could be the Queen ... He loved you, but he loves her now; the same, but
not the same. Come back—your loss is a wound turning good flesh bitter, here in
the City’s heart ... an un healing wound ... The past becomes a continuous
future, unless you break the

Change ...
No further analysis!” Aspundh’s head dropped forward; he leaned against the
table for a long moment before he looked up again. “It seemed to be—night,
there.” He took a sip from his drink. “And the room was full of strange faces
...”

Moon picked
up her own glass, drank to loosen the invisible hand closing on her throat. He
loved you, but he loves her now.

“What did I
say?” Aspundh looked toward her, clear eyed again, but his face was drained and
drawn.

She told
him, haltingly, helped on by the others. “But I don’t understand it ...”
I don’t understand it! How could he love ...
She bit her lip. Elsevier’s hand touched hers lightly, briefly.

““You could
be Queen,”“ Aspundh said. ““Your loss is an un healing wound.” I think you had
a true intuition ... your role in a greater play has been left unfilled. An
inequality has been created.”

“But it’s
already happened,” Elsevier said slowly. “Doesn’t that mean it was meant to
happen?”

He smiled,
shaking his head. “I don’t pretend to know. I am a technocrat, not a
philosopher. The interpretation is not up to me, thank the gods. Whether it’s
finished or not is up to Moon.”

Moon
stiffened. “You mean—there is a way I can go back to Tiamat?”

“Yes, I
think there is. Elsevier will take you, if you still want to go.”

“But you
said—”

“KR, it
isn’t possible!”

“If you
leave immediately and use the adaptors I’ll provide, you’ll get through the
Gate safely, and before Tiamat is cut off for good.”

“But we
don’t have an astrogator.” Elsevier leaned forward. “Cress isn’t strong
enough.”

“You have
an astrogator.” His gaze moved.