The Summer Queen (27 page)

“A young lady, sah? Perhaps then an unexpected husband—?”

Gundhalinu glanced back at him, and shook his head, smiling.
“No.”

“Too much to dream, then?”

“What—?” He broke off, remembering. To the locals that meant
drugs. And yet when he thought about it, it made more genuine sense than
anything he could have said himself about what he had experienced tonight. “Yes.
I suppose so.”

That answer seemed to satisfy the boatman, and he fell
silent. Gundhalinu kept his own silence, his numb, shivering body hunched over
itself, aching for permission to go to sleep sitting upright. But his mind
refused to let go, fixating on one thing, the final thing out of all he had
learned—he could communicate with another sibyl. What had happened to him at
Fire Lake was not a fluke. All he needed was to know that sibyl’s name. And he
knew her name ... her face, her body, her world .... The fog seemed to whiten,
like fields of snow ... Moon.

“Here we are, sah.”

He started awake; looked up, realizing that he had nodded
off, that they had arrived at the Memorial Arch that marked the boundary
between the upper and lower sections of Foursgate, between street and canal,
land and sea. Here he could find transportation that would accept a credit
number, or would at least take him to his own door and wait while he fetched
his card to pay for the ride.

The boat bumped adroitly against the pylons of the dock. The
boatman held the craft steady as Gundhalmu got to his feet.

“I don’t know how to thank you—” he began, but the boatman
shook his head.

“No need, sah. Only take some free advice, then, from one
who knows this world: Watch out for the ones who did that to you. They’ll fill
your mind up with too many of their dreams, until you can’t think clearly
anymore. What they sell you isn’t all true, and it isn’t all harmless. Be on
your guard, when you mix in those circles.” He held out his hand, stood waiting
to help Gundhalinu make the unsteady step across onto solid ground.

“Yes,” Gundhalinu murmured uncertainly. “Yes, I will ....”He
took the proffered hand; felt an unmistakable, hidden pattern in the brush of
the boatman’s fingers. He returned it, and felt the grip tighten warmly over
his own before he stepped onto the pier.

“Blessed be, sah,” the boatman said. “It’s a privilege I don’t
have every day, giving a ride to a famous person like yourself ....”He pushed
away from the dock.

“Wait—!” Gundhalinu looked up, gesturing the boatman back.
The boatman raised his own hand in a farewell salute as his boat drifted on
into the mist.

Gundhalinu stood silently, gazing after him until he was
lost from sight.

Kedalion Niburu leaned against the warm side of the hovercraft,
breathing in the parched, spice-scented air of the marketplace, taking in the
color-splashed scene with mixed emotions as he waited for Reede Kullervo’s
return. He glanced diagonally across the street at a mudbrick wall topped by
iron spikes. From behind its heavy wooden gate, he could hear the unmistakable
screams of someone in serious pain The someone in question was not Reede, which
meant that the visit was proceeding as planned.

The local dealer behind that gate had been cutting Reede’s
product with inferior drugs, or so he’d heard. When he was in one of his moods,
Reede liked to set matters straight personally, and he’d been in one of his
moods today, when he’d kicked Kedahon out of bed at dawn, calling him a lazy
son of a bitch.

Damn him. Kedalion took a deep breath. At least it had
gotten them out of the citadel for the day. Humbaba didn’t like it when Reede
did his own dirty work ... but then, Reede didn’t care, and even Humbaba seemed
powerless to stop him.

It seemed impossible that it had been less than three years,
in subjective time, since he had gone to work for Reede Kullervo ... since he
had, more accurately, come under Reede’s thumb. He felt as though he had been
Kullervo’s private property forever; even though he still remembered as vividly
as if it were yesterday the day he had come to work for Humbaba’s cartel. Like
a near-fatal wound, it was not something he was ever likely to forget: that day
when he had finally admitted to himself that Reede Kullervo’s power and
influence were actually as great as Reede had claimed; that Kedalion Niburu had
become a nonperson, who would starve to death on the streets of Razuma’s port
town before anyone would hire him for any job whatsoever—because Reede had put
out the word that he was spoken for. With the Prajna impounded for docking fees
and the red debit figure on his nonfunctional credit card showing larger each
day, he had finally swallowed his pride and sold himself—and a willing Ananke—into
this golden servitude.

He sighed, pushing the memory back into a closet in his
mind, where he sometimes managed to keep it forgotten for days at a time. He
had to admit, in spite of everything, that there were worse jobs, worse
positions he could be in .... He could be the dealer getting the shit kicked
out of him behind that wall across the street, for instance.

He inched farther into the hovercraft’s shade. The heat made
him dizzy; the sweat on his skin dried almost instantly, but even that wasn’t
enough to make him feel cool. At least the heat was predictable. Razuma was as
close as he had come to a home in a long time, and he was glad enough to be
back in town after their latest trip offworld.

His travels with Reede were neither as frequent nor—as far
as he could tell—as hazardous to his health as his former solo runs. So far
they had been offworld twice in the time he had worked for Reede. And the job
paid a hell of a lot better, just as Reede had promised him. But the fact that
he never knew what the trips were for—was never given even a clue about what
Reede wanted, or got out of, those journeys—preyed on his nerves in a different
sort of way; just as being stuck on Ondinee for the majority of his time, playing
glorified chauffeur to a manic depressive, did.

On the other hand, he’d discovered that working for Reede
had a built-in cachet that protected him from the locals’ harassment, while it
gave him access to places and pleasures he’d never dreamed this planet
possessed. A world was a big place, and not all of Ondinee was like Razuma.
Reede had taken them along to a mountain resort with views he would never
forget, to a city on South Island where the sea was as warm as bath water and
the color of aquamarines.

And then there had been the orbital habitat, with some of
the best gaming simulators he had ever encountered. Kedalion remembered
watching Reede play the games one night. It had been like watching free-fall
ballet, the way Reede’s perfect reflexes and brilliant mind had made winning
seem completely effortless. Reede had given them unlimited playfr-credit, and
their losses had almost offset the amount he had won himself. But afterwards
Reede had been in a foul mood, as if he’d lost instead of won, or as if, when
you never lost a game, winning might as well be losing ....

And on the other hand, most of what they saw was still Tuo
Ne’el’s thorn forest and citadels, or the streets of Razuma.

Kedalion searched the crowds for Ananke, who had wandered
off into the square, trying to take his mind off circumstances. He spotted him—surrounded
as usual by a squad of street urchins. They shrieked and trilled approval as
Ananke juggled anything within reach, contorted his body with an acrobat’s
absurd grace, and sang nonsense songs. He had taken to wearing a specially fitted
leather glove on one foot, instead of his usual sandal; it was a spacer’s
trick, freeing one foot for use in low-gravity environments. On most of the
spacers Kedalion had known it was only an affectation. But Ananke’s physical
dexterity made the boast genuine: even in normal gravity, he sometimes seemed
to have three hands. Kedalion watched him with mildly envious admiration. He
saw some of the adults who invariably gathered around toss out coins; Ananke
left them lying in the dust for the children to pick up. They all knew that he
worked for the offworlders—the money, and his disdain for it, were the proof of
his prestige.

Kedalion shook his head, smiling briefly. He reached into a
pocket and took out his huskball, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand.
Ananke had proved to be quick and flexible, mentally as well as physically,
just as he had promised; and knowing that his skill was recognized and
appreciated had only made him work harder. Once they’d gotten past the fear
that Reede would kill them one day on a whim, he had grown more comfortable
with their new employment than Kedalion would ever feel. Ananke had gone from
abject terror directly to a kind of blissful hero-worship that was probably a
hell of a lot more dangerous. Fortunately his naive fascination with Reede’s
volatile mood swings seemed to amuse Reede more than annoy him. This was the
kid’s homeworld, and having Reede’s protection covering him seemed to free him
of some of his dislike for living on it.

Kedalion’s smile faded, and he sighed again, thinking
nostalgically on the false comfort of youth. He straightened away from the
hovercraft as his eye caught motion at the distant gate. Reede came out of it,
slamming it behind him, and strode through the crowd in the square as if they
didn’t exist. They flowed out of his path as obligingly as water. Kedalion
watched him come, seeing red stains on his clothes and black satisfaction in
his eyes. Kedalion felt all expression drain out of his own face. He looked
away, calling, “Ananke!”

Ananke turned, catching a handful of various fruits as they
fell from the air. His own grin disappeared; he waded obediently through the
belt-level protests of the children, tossing the fruit to them as he walked
back toward the hovercraft.

Reede reached it first, and nodded at Kedalion with a grunt
that meant he was pleased with himself. He leaned against the craft’s door,
cracking his knuckles.

“Feel better now?” Kedalion said, and regretted it instantly;
sounding even to himself like a man chiding a child.

Reede looked at him, and raised an eyebrow. “Much,” he said.
“Do you mind?”

Kedalion grimaced. “Better him than me, I suppose.”

Reede laughed. “Damn right .... Don’t sulk, Niburu. Ozal
will be crawling around on all fours by tomorrow. And he’ll never, ever fuck
with my product again.” He shrugged, loosening the muscles in his shoulders,
and pulled at his ear.

“Ananke!” Kedalion shouted again, an excuse to look away, an
excuse to raise his voice. He saw with some annoyance that Ananke had gotten
sidetracked into an argument with a group of boys who had begun tossing something
cat-sized back and forth in imitation of his juggling. Kedalion recognized the
shrilling of a quoll in distress; heard Ananke’s voice rise above the general
laughter as he tried to catch the animal they were throwing like a ball across
farther and farther stretches of air. They angled across the square, drawing
him away from the hovercraft.

Reede’s head swung around as the animal began to shriek in
terror or pain. He stood motionless, watching the scene; muttered something to
himself about being a stupid asshole.

“Ananke!” Kedalion shouted again; feeling his stomach knot
with disgust, not sure whether it was the scene in the street or Reede’s
reaction to it that angered him more. “You bastard,” he muttered, looking back
at Reede before he started out into the square himself—just as one of the boys
shouted, “Catch this, juggler!” and pitched the wailing quoll into the air in a
long arc. Ananke ran and leaped after it, futilely, crashing into the low ceralloy
wall that rimmed the neighborhood cistern. Ananke barely kept himself from
falling in as the quotl flew over his head, down into the depths of the
spring-fed tank.

Kedalion stopped moving as he saw the quoll go into the cistern.
Ananke hung motionless over the wall, staring down into the tank like a stunned
gargoyle.

Someone pushed past Kedalion, jarring him; he saw Reede run
out across the square to the cistern. Reede climbed onto the wall, stood
looking down into the depths for a heartbeat, and then jumped.

“Edhu—!” Kedalion gasped. He began to run. Ananke was still
hanging over the cistern’s rim, staring down into the well in disbelief as
Kedalion reached his side.

Kedalion peered over the rim, just able to see down to where
the water surface lay in the deep shadows below. He blinked the sunlight out of
his eyes, heard splashing and panic-stricken squealing echo up the steep
seamless walls. He saw Reede in the water far below, struggling to get ahold of
the floundering creature. At last Reede clamped it in both hands and shoved it
inside his shirt, kicked his way toward the steps that spiraled down the cistern’s
interior.

Women and girls with water jugs balanced on their heads
stood gaping as he hauled himself up out of the water onto the platform where
they had gathered; they backed away as he staggered to his feet and started the
long climb up the steps. Kedalion and Ananke watched him come, with the animal
held against him, still struggling futilely.

Reede reached the street level at last, his eyes searching
the crowd. Kedalion hurried forward, with Ananke trailing behind him. “Reede—!”

Reede turned at his voice, waited at the top of the stairs
until they reached him. He wasn’t even breathing hard, Kedalion noticed—Reede
had more physical stamina than any three men. But water streamed from his hair
and clothing, his arms and chest oozed red from the scratches and bites the
frantic quoll had inflicted on him in its struggles.

“Bishada!” Ananke cried, grinning with awe and gratitude. “You
saved it—”

Reede read the expression on the boy’s face, and his own
face twisted. “No. You saved the fucking thing,” he said. He reached into his
shirt and dragged the animal out, slung it at Ananke. “Here. You know the rule
by now. You save it, it belongs to you. It’s your responsibility. Not mine.”