The Summer Queen (101 page)

Sparks pushed to his feet, avoiding the eyes of the other
men in the room. He nodded, and left the table. The lift doors opened, as if
they had been waiting for him.

“Reede ...” the Source’s voice said, as Sparks Dawntreader
disappeared into the lift.

Reede pulled his gaze back unwillingly, a part of his mind
caught in a daydream of changing places with the man being sent away. His eyes
glanced off of Wayaways, registering the satisfaction on the Tiamatan’s face as
he watched Dawntreader banished while he stayed behind; sitting here as if he
knew everything, as if he knew anything. He had been a member of the
Brotherhood for years during the Snow Queen’s reign, but he still had no idea
what kind of mire he was sinking into. Reede met Wayaways’s stare, watched its
smirking arrogance falter as it collided with his own unshakable despair.

Reede turned to face the darkness again, forcing his eyes to
see the vague suggestion of a humanoid form within it, and not to look away. “What?”
he said, his voice rough. He knew that the Source was actually here on Tiamat
now; that whatever was on the other side of that projection saw him clearly,
saw him sweating and hurting, the telltale signs of deterioration because he
had been kept waiting too long for the water of death. He didn’t know whether
this delay in his scheduled dose was meant as punishment or persuasion; he only
knew that it was intentional. And that at last he was about to know why.

“Ariele Dawntreader,” the Source murmured.

“What—?” Reede said again, uncomprehendingly.

“I know that nothing more ... intimate has occurred between
you and the Queen’s daughter than simple conversation. But she wants more than
conversation. She wants you, Reede.”

Reede froze. “So what?” he muttered. “It keeps her talking
about the mere.”

“What she knows about the mers is useless, for your
purposes. You know that as well as I do. Why do you keep seeing her?”

“It’s not useless,” he said stubbornly. “I need all the data
I can get.”

“You need a blood sample! She saved your life ... and she
stopped you from getting the one thing you really need to develop a replication
of the technoviral. She has been a hindrance, not a help, in your work: she’s
actually made you wonder if you have a conscience, hasn’t she?”

Reede felt himself flush. He glanced at Wayaways, realizing
the Tiamatan was probably the one who had told the Source everything. “You want
me to dump her? Okay, I’ll dump her. No problem.”

“No,” the Source said softly. “That is not what I want. What
she knows about the mers is nothing ... but she is still important to us.”

Reede glanced toward the lift again, suddenly understanding
why the Source had gotten rid of Dawntreader. He kept his gaze fixed on the
wall, letting the fluid motion of the colors fill his eyes. A hard lump of
tension filled his throat as the silence stretched. But he would not ask; he
would not, he would not—

“What did you have in mind?” Wayaways murmured, asking the
question for him.

“My man Reede is going to seduce her.”

Reede’s head snapped around; he saw Wayaways’ amusement turn
to sudden surprise at the sight of his revulsion.

“It should be simple for you. Reede. From what Wayaways has
told me, Ariele has fir more in common with her grandmother, Arienrhod, than
with her mother ... and she’s already infatuated with you. All you have to do
is let her have what she wants. I’m sure she won’t be disappointed. You never
disappointed Mundilfoere.”

Reede swore, pushing to his feet. Dizziness made him lean on
the table; he sank into his seat again. Wayaways’ eyes were on him like a
voyeur’s. Reede shook his head, in disbelief more than denial. “Why ... ?” he
said, uncomprehendingly.

“Because it will bind her to us. It will give me power over
her ... and over her mother.”

He shook his head again. “What’s the point? Drop a dose of
something in the Queen’s soup, if you want her to cooperate. Why bother with this
game—”

“Because it’s my game, and you are my pawn,” the darkness
said. “And I want you to make her fall in love with you. That is your penance;
for lying to me, for failing to make meaningful progress in your research on
the mers because of your infatuation with this girl.”

Reede felt nausea rise like a living thing inside him,
barely able to control it. “I’m working on it, you bastard! I’ll get the blood
sample—I’ll kill the fucking mer with my bare hands if that’s what you want. I’ll
give you what you want. But not her. It’s not going to happen. Not with me.”

“I thought she didn’t matter to you.”

“She doesn’t—”

“—Or is it Mundilfoere?”

Reede jerked with impotent fury. Wayaways flinched back as
he rose to his feet again. He started away from the table, heading blindly for
the lift, although he knew that he was a prisoner, that it would not even
answer his call unless the Source ordered it to.

“Reede.” Something in the Source’s voice stopped him dead. “I
have what you need “

He turned back slowly, willing his eyes to see what they saw
waiting for him on the table. He flung himself across the room, catching up the
vial before it could disappear, and emptied it into his mouth.

His throat closed suddenly, as he would have swallowed—as
his lips, his tongue, registered something wrong. He spat; a mouthful of warm
blood crimsoned the front of his clothes, his hands, the tabletop, like gaudy
vomit. “Shit!” he gasped. “Shit—!” Droplets of red splattered on Wayaways as he
shook his dripping hands. Wayaways swore in furious disgust.

“Whose was it?” he shouted at the darkness. “Whose? Whose?”
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, leaving a smear of red. He spat again.

“Mer blood,” the Source said. “What you need to continue
your research ... as I said. Since you failed to get it yourself, I have obtained
it for you, with the cooperation of Wayaways here. You’ll find the rest of the
sample waiting for you in the labs I want you to go there now and do your work.”

Reede looked down at his trembling, bloodied hands, at the
empty vial lying on the tabletop. “I can’t. I can’t work when I’m like this! I
need—”

“I know what you need,” the Source said softly. “You’ll find
that too, waiting for you .... Now go.”

Reede wiped his hands on his shut, swallowing bile. He
glanced at Wayaways as he raised his head again. The Tiamatan was staring back
at him with morbid fascination. Reede leaned forward suddenly, and hit Wayaways
a blinding slap across the face with his open palm. He pushed back again and
went on across the room toward the lift. This time its doors opened to him, and
took him inside.

Kirard Set Wayaways rubbed his face, frozen somewhere between
outrage and disbelief as he watched Kullervo step into the lift and disappear
from sight. Finally he looked toward the formless blackness that claimed to be
the Source, realizing that he was suddenly quite alone with it. He had never
been alone in the Source’s presence before, and remembering what he had just
seen, he was not sure whether to be flattered or unnerved by this unexpected audience.

“Wayaways ...”the Source’s ruined voice said.

Kirard Set attempted to hold an expression of calm
anticipation on his face.

“... you show great potential. I commend your work so far.
You seem to accomplish your goals with alacrity. I expect you will continue to
rise within the Brotherhood, and enjoy its rewards.”

Kirard Set smiled in acknowledgment; but his hand rubbed his
still-smarting face.

“Don’t take Kullervo’s insufferable behavior to heart,” the
Source murmured. “He has a lot on his mind. And he will have more, before long.
Perhaps you would like to help me see that he does. I want his relationship
with Ariele Dawntreader consummated. It won’t happen if I leave it to him. He
belongs to me ... but he still likes to pretend he has some choice in the
matter.” He made an amused sound. “This star-crossed romance will need
additional effort. You can help me see that it takes place.” Kirard Set nodded,
more eagerly this time, with his hand still pressing his cheek.

“This is what I want you to do ....”

Moon arrived at Fate Ravenglass’s doorstep with Clavally
Bluestone, and knocked on the closed upper half of the door. She heard
footsteps approaching and a familiar voice, heard a cat squawk as it
inadvertently got underfoot. The upper door swung open, and Fate’s unseeing
eyes looked out at them. She smiled as if she could actually see their faces,
because she had been expecting them.

“Come in, come in—” She opened the lower half of the door as
they spoke their own greetings, and two spotted cats were suddenly under their
feet as they stepped inside. Fate’s old gray tom had finally died, some years
back, and Tor had supplied with not one, but two replacements, when the
restaurant’s cat had kittens. “What’s this? You’ve brought lunch?” She sniffed
pointedly. “Does this mean you’re for more than simply to discuss College
business, then?”

“Well, we all have to eat, and why not gossip a little over
lunch, then?” Clavally lid cheerfully. She set the covered basket down on the
table in the front room, which been a workshop in the days when Fate had been a
maskmaker. Now that the allege had moved up the long spiral ing hill to the
palace and the city had begun to Rll up with foreigners, Fate got out less and
less, and they both knew it. With the lyears slowing her body and making her
less sure on her feet, the accumulation of “difficulties had been gradually
conspiring to make her housebound.

“Well then, tell me what’s new?” Fate found her way to a
seat, moving confidently within the confines of her home. She gestured to them
to sit down. “Have either of you been to Tor’s club yet? I hear that it’s
thriving. I’m very happy for her, I know it’s what she was meant to do.
Although I virtually never see her anymore, and that’s a shame.” Moon heard the
vast loneliness and regret inside the resolutely positive words.

“No,” Moon answered, hearing Clavally’s “No” echo her own.
They glanced at each other, smiling ruefully. “Too busy,” she said.

“Too much noise,” Clavally said. She opened the basket, passing
around meat pies. “It’s for the offworlders, who don’t know what silence means,
and for the young ones, who don’t want to know.”

“For shame,” Fate said, clucking, as she accepted a pastry,
its wrapper covered with unintelligible offworlder script. She breathed in the
smell of the food, took a tentative bite, and sighed, nodding approval. “Well,
this is not bad, you know .... You should go to the club. Make the time! You’re
young yet, you should enjoy yourself. Try something new. I’d like to hear about
it.”

“I’ll send Ariele to give you a complete description,” Moon
murmured. “If she ever speaks to me again. She lives there, or would, if Tor
would let her.”

“Oh, now,” Clavally said. “It isn’t that bad. She’s still
out at the plantation with the mers as much as she is down in the Maze with
Elco Teel and that lot. She’ll stablize. All the young ones are gorging
themselves on the offworlders’ sweetmeats, because they’ve never had anything
like it. Eventually they’ll grow tried of it.”

“How, when there’s something new every week—? They’re lost
at sea, with nothing to navigate by, and no anchor.” Moon heard her own voice
sharpen; knew that it wasn’t the temptations of the Maze, but Ariele’s response
to them that galled her. “At least your Merovy has a sense of purpose; the
future isn’t an infinite present to her.”

“How is Merovy?” Fate asked. “Has she finished her medtech
internship yet? And how is Tammis? I miss his voice too, and his music, without
my days at the College. And Dana—?”

“Dana is doing well. With the new medicine he’s been taking,
his back is much improved again; his arthritis is virtually gone. Merovy will
be licensed in a fortnight,” Clavally said.

“Wonderful.” Fate smiled. “And Tammis—?” she prompted, when
no one said anything more. “They make such a good match, it gives one hope for
the future.”

“They’re fine,” Clavally said, but the animation went out of
her voice. Moon looked at her in surprise. “Their work keeps them both so
occupied ... she complains that they don’t spend enough time together anymore.”

Fate’s expression altered. “That will change when her
studies are finished, ] imagine.”

“I don’t know.” Clavally glanced down. “Perhaps. I hope so.
Maybe it will.”

“I didn’t realize they were having problems,” Moon said
softly, selfconsciously. “Tammis hasn’t said anything about it to me ....”He
said almost nothing at all about what was going on in his life, and she hadn’t
even been aware of it. They talked about the mers, or research, when they saw
each other these days’ nothing personal. Ariele avoided her as if she had a
contagious disease.

Tammis did seem moodier than usual, she realized, just as
Ariele seemed even more willful. But until now she had not thought about why—any
more than she had thought about why neither of them had asked her the question
she had been anticipating for months: The question of who their real father
was. They had nevei asked ... and her only emotion had been relief.

It had been her responsibility to bring it up, not theirs.
But she had been too preoccupied with the Hegemony ... with her own troubled
feelings for the two men who had equal claim to the title “father.” Too
self-obsessed ... too much like Arienrhod. Guilt writhed like eels in her
stomach. She picked at her food, suddenly without appetite. “I’ll try to speak
to him,” she said. Try. She had been trying for weeks, months now, without
success.

“And how is Sparks?” Fate pressed on, with determined
good-naturedness through their awkward silence. “He hasn’t been by in some
time. Is he still working on that program to recreate segments of a damaged
fugue structure? What was it he said: ‘It was like mending mathematical lace.’
His mind amazes me ....”