The Summer Queen (154 page)

“I didn’t know she could play,” he said, looking away from
them toward Ariele, who was still lost in the rapture of her music. He felt a
sudden, unexpected yearning fill him, like the sweet, sorrowful gaiety of her
song rising into the air.

“Neither did I,” Gundhalinu murmured, a little sadly.

“Neither did I ....” The Queen’s voice was an echo of the music’s
joy and plangency. Gundhalinu put his arm around her, drawing her close.

She looked up at him and nodded, as if he had spoken; as if
there was no real need for words between them anymore. She looked at Reede
again; her eyes were wells of memory. Reede stepped aside to let them pass. He
watched as they made their way through the dwindling crowd, heading toward the
stairway that he had come down. He watched them go out as he had watched them
come in, completing the circle.

He turned his back on the empty stairs, granting them their
privacy; looking toward the music, and Ariele. He let his thoughts dissolve
into the fluid melody, letting Reede Kullervo become lost in the crowd.

Moon led BZ along the quiet hall, up another stairway,
through more corridors, hand in hand. He did not question her, following her
with a yielding compliance—as if he were still a prisoner. She looked back at
him, aching inside. She had thought she was leading him to her bedroom; but
they went on, passing its door. BZ glanced at her in silent curiosity, but
still asked her no questions.

She had spent every day of the interminable weeks between
the tribunal’s arrival and his return working from dawn until far into the
night, pressed on all sides by the demands of renegotiating Tiamat’s
relationship with the Hegemony and overseeing the city’s recovery from the
storm’s disastrous passing. But every night, when she lay in her bed at last,
alone, she had imagined him lying beside her: the sound of his breathing, his
heartbeat; the warmth of his touch bringing her cold, grief-wracked body back
to life.

And yet here, now, when they were alone at last, she knew
that it was not what she wanted, or needed. The first giddy rush of joy they
had felt at the sight of one another had carried them gracefully, painlessly
through the party’s public eye. But here in these empty halls, that bright,
thoughtless moment of pleasure was fading, letting memory overtake her, letting
in ghosts and shadows. And looking up at his shadowed, weary face, she knew
that it was not what he needed, either, to be hurried into intimacy.

And so she led him on through the halls and up the final
spiral stair, leading him to her private room at the palace’s, and the city’s,
peak. The night sky opened out around them, glowing with the fire of countless
stars. The cool, blue-silver face of Tiamat’s single large moon was a luminous
mystery rising over the sea.

She heard BZ draw a breath of astonishment, as he saw what
lay before and below him. “I had no idea this existed ...” he whispered, and
she did not know whether he meant this secret room, or a view of such beauty.
She rested her head against his shoulder as they stood together, looking out;
holding one another but perfectly still, forgetting their own existence.

Something broke the water’s surface, far out on the placid
dark-bright mirror of the sea: one silhouette and then another and another,
stitching tracks of blackness across its shimmering surface; a reminder of all
that lay hidden beneath its illusion of calm. “Are those mers?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said softly. “I can’t be sure, at this
distance.”

He sighed. “I thought I’d never live to see this world
again,” he said. “I thought I’d never see your face—” He looked away from the
ocean, into her eyes; touched her face tentatively, with a work-scarred hand. “They
tried to kill me ...” he murmured, at last.

“Who?” She would have held his gaze, but he looked out at
the sea again.

“The same ones who wanted to kill the mers.” His face hardened
like a fist. “The same ones who were congratulating me on my return, and
licking my boots downstairs tonight, probably. They didn’t have the influence—or
the courage—to kill me outright. So they sent me to that place ....”He broke
off. “And hoped time would take care of things. Except that you saved my life,
again.” His expression eased, and he kissed her hair, a tender, passionless
kiss.

She did not answer, did not move, her body insensate and unresponsive:
remembering how thin a membrane lay between life and death, remembering all the
things that could not be changed, ever.

“Moon ...” He closed her in his arms in sudden compassion. “I’m
sorry. I’m so sorry ....” And in his broken voice she heard the memory of
sounds torn from her throat by her own mourning.

She shook her head, feeling her flushed cheek brush the
cool, impersonal cloth of his uniform jacket; feeling the armor of hard-edged
medals he wore press into her back, her neck, as he held her. Feeling no
comfort. “Mother of Us All,” she whispered, gazing out at the sea, “I would
rather have died than have had my heart torn out of me.” She thought of
Arienrhod then—of her bones rolled eternally in the dark depths of the sea—with
pity and terror.

He had no answer, this time; only went on holding her, until
she began to feel the warmth of his body penetrate her skin like a soothing
balm. “Look,” he said at last. “Those are mers. You can see it clearly now.”
His arms still held her tightly; his voice insisted that she look.

She raised her head, to see them, a whole colony rejoicing
in the night at the interface between worlds. Their lives were complete again,
their reason for existence secure again; although she saw in the hidden forms
of their abandoned motion, their courting dance, that in their timeless world,
existence itself could be reason enough. They had far more in common with the
sibyl mind than they had with the human servants who shared their spiritual bondage
to it. She watched them appear and disappear, leaving the subtle patterns of
their passing imprinted on her mind as they winked in and out of sight on the
star-filled surface of the water. “I envy them ...” she whispered. “They live
without regret.”

“Then—lives will never again come to an unnatural end, because
of us,” Gundhalinu murmured, against her hair. “And no human lives will ever
again be unnaturally prolonged by their deaths. A balance has been restored
.... Maybe now we can get on with our own lives. With our life together. We’ve
lost so much time that we can never get back—” Moon closed her eyes, remembering
an eternity where time’s arrow had lost its way, and pointed all ways at once.
She opened them again, looking out at the sea and sky on fire with stars. She
could not find the line where one ended and the other began; it was as if there
were no separation, but instead a single continuum flowing from the depths of
the sea into the depths of space. “‘Time will take care of things,’” she
repeated softly, remembering his bitter words. “It has ... it will. It owes
that much to us.” She looked up at him again, seeing the night reflected in his
dark eyes.

He smiled at last and nodded, holding her, wanning her. “I
look forward,” he said, “to growing old with you.”

“Gods,” Kedalion said, stretching his fingers until his
knuckles cracked, as he leaned back in the command seat of the Prajna. “I’m
still half afraid I’m going to wake up from this dream.” He looked over at
Ananke. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”

Ananke smiled. “You’re not dreaming. Unless I’m having the
same one.” She shrugged, stroking the quoll’s bulbous ‘>332’ nose as she
studied the readouts on the control room wall. “Drive systems, check. Cargo,
check. Life support systems, check. Clearances are all in, and departure window
has not changed. We’re free, Kedalion. We’re really free to go.” She settled
comfortably into the copilot’s seat, dropping the quoll into its nesting box, secured
underneath the instrument panel in front of her.

“Ready to leave Tiamat space?” Kedalion spoke the ritual
question, looking up at her again from his own boards.

“Ready,” she answered, without hesitation.

Kedalion glanced back over his shoulder. “Ready, Dawntreader?”

Sparks Dawntreader looked up at him, and nodded his bandage-wrapped
head imperceptibly. But his eyes still searched the display screens, still
clinging to the final view of his homeworld passing by, grandly, thousands of
kilometers below them. “Am I doing the right thing, Niburu?” he murmured. “I
don’t know,” Kedalion said. “But you’re doing a good thing .... Are you ready?”
he asked again, after a moment. At his touch the image on the screens became a
field of stars.

Dawntreader drew a deep breath. “I’m ready,” he said, and
this time he was looking at the future. He smiled, lifting a hand in a gesture
that might have been meant as reassurance, or only as a farewell.

Kedalion settled back into his seat. He spoke to the port
orbiting far below; spoke to the ship’s computer, activating the departure
sequence.

And then, in the sublime grip of anticipation, he waited,
while the Prajna came alive around him, and fell away into the night.