He reached the audience hall. It was empty now, vast and still, as though it held its breath. He started across it, and his passage did nothing to disturb the stillness. He wondered what it would be like to hold power for one hundred and fifty years, as Arienrhod had. What would it be like just to be alive for that long; to have seen the return of the off worlders and the rebirth of Winter — to watch civilization reborn, and to have your pick of its pleasures? He would like to know how a man — or a woman — would feel after all that; and he wondered whether if he’d lived that long he might have begun to understand the involutions of Arienhrod’s mind.
He’d lost count long ago of the women he’d known, from highborn tech to slave; he’d hated some of them and used most of them and respected one or two, but he’d never loved even one of them. Nothing had given him any evidence that love was anything but a four-letter word. Only weaklings and losers believed in love or gods…
But he had never experienced anything like Arienrhod. She was not so much a woman as an elemental; her magnetism was created of all the things he found desirable. She had made him an unwilling believer in his own vulnerability; and that had made him half-willing to believe in the power of strange gods, too… or strange goddesses. And he wouldn’t have one hundred and fifty years of youth and pleasure, one hundred and fifty years to work at unraveling her mysteries, even if he wanted to. He had only five years before he would have to leave this world forever — or die. In five years it would all end at the Change, and Arienrhod would die… and he would die with her, unless he cleared out in time. He loved her, and he had never loved anyone except himself in all his life. But he didn’t think he loved her more than life.
She stood waiting for him on the platform as he entered the Hall of the Winds; the pit groaned and sighed its eager greeting at her back. Stray tendrils of wind lifted her milk-white hair, let it fall free over the enfolding whiteness of her ceremonial cape. The cape was made from the down of arctic birds, flecked with silver, the softness of clouds… he remembered the feel of it against his skin. She had worn it six times, at each of his previous challenges; she had worn it the first time, when he had been the challenger.
The Hounds stood off to the left, their skins glistening, their inner eyelids lying across their nacreous, expressionless eyes. They were here to pledge service to the winner — and to dispose silently of the loser’s corpse. In ten years he had never fathomed their endless droning dialogues, or cared that he hadn’t. He didn’t know whether they had any sex lives, or even any sex. Their intelligence was supposed to be subhuman, but how the hell could you judge an alien mind? They were used on some worlds as slaves; but so were human beings. He wondered briefly what they were thinking as they turned to watch him; wondered if they ever thought about anything a man could relate to, besides killing.
He made his formal bows, to Arienrhod, to the boy. “I’ve come. Name your weapon.” It was the first time that the naming had not been his to say. Arienrhod’s eyes touched him as he spoke the ritual words; but there was no reassurance in her glance, only a reaffirmation of the coldness that had grown in her since the boy’s arrival. Then was she really still infatuated with that Summer bastard? Did she really believe that he had a chance?
Starbuck kneaded one fist inside the other, suddenly thrown off balance. Damn her, she wasn’t going to get away with it! He was going to kill that kid, and then shed have him back in her bed again whether she wanted him or not! He struggled to force his rising, murderous anger into a straitjacket of concentration. “Well, what’s your choice?”
“The wind.” Sparks Dawntreader smiled tightly, and swept his hand around, pointing. “We stand on the bridge there — and whoever controls the winds better will still be there when it’s finished.” He took his flute slowly from his belt pouch, and held it out.
Starbuck’s voice caught on a single barb of startled laughter. So the kid had imagination to match his gall… and his stupidity. The nobles with their whistles could hold a quiet space of air around themselves while they crossed over the pit, but they couldn’t manipulate two spaces at once. With his own control box, he could produce the chords and overtones that would keep him protected and still attack. If the kid thought that he was better equipped than a noble, with that shell flute of his, then he was in for the biggest surprise of his life — and the last.
Arienrhod moved back, her cape billowing like mist, like the translucent wind panels above the bridge, left the two of them alone facing one another. “May the best man win.” Her voice was expressionless.
Without waiting for Sparks to move first, Starbuck walked past him and onto the bridge. He crossed it almost carelessly, his fingers pressing the singing sequence of buttons at his belt. Once the wind licked him and his breath caught, but he was sure no one had noticed. He stopped at last, more than halfway along the span, and turned; stood waiting with one hand on his hip and the other at his belt. He had never stood still above the abyss before; the groaning entrails of the city machinery seemed infinite beneath him, and the span on which he stood far too frail. He pressed the piercing tone buttons automatically, massaged by the fluctuations of the pressure cell around him, very carefully not looking down.
Sparks lifted his flute to his lips and stepped out onto the bridge; the fluid purity of the notes reached Starbuck clearly. He saw with some surprise that it actually worked — the music wrapped the kid like a spell, he moved in quiet air, the blaze of his hair and the green silk of his shirt unruffled. He must have spent a lot of time analyzing this place. Not that it was going to do him any good.
Starbuck pressed a second button when the boy was barely out past the brink. The bellying translucent panels shifted in the air; wind swept up from an unexpected quarter and struck like a snake at the boy’s back. He staggered and went down on one knee at the lipless edge of the walkway; but his fingers never released the flute, and he countered the cross draft deftly, throwing himself back onto his feet in the center of the path. He came on, sudden ruthless anger in his face; a rush of shrill notes danced ahead of him, guarding his advance, blurring the sounds of Starbuck’s own feint and parry.
Starbuck stumbled, barely managing to keep his feet as the wind struck him hard across the face. His eyes watered; he blinked frantically, trying to see when he should have been listening. The wind caught him from behind and knocked him down. On hands and knees he found the controls again, stabilized his space of air with desperate skill as he climbed to his feet. The wind panels cracked and rattled as Sparks attacked again, grinning now with mirthless concentration. It staggered him, but he managed to counter, notes clashing in the air; realizing at last that the contest was not going to be one-sided… at least not in the way he had imagined. He had never paid enough attention to the boy’s music to realize his virtuosity with that damned piece of shell. He could produce overtones with it, and his fingers were so quick that the notes came close to being chords — close enough. And the boy was playing this game as though he had prepared for the match with all the skill of his musician’s ear and his would-be technician’s mind.
But it was a game of death, and out of all the skills he, Starbuck, had that the boy could have chosen, manipulating the winds was the least exercised. He began to sweat; for the first time in longer than he could remember, he began to feel afraid for his own life. The wind batted him again when he thought he was safe. He struck back viciously, sending the wind in from three different quarters, heard the boy’s shout of surprise as one arm of it caught him unawares and sent him reeling forward. But he stayed on the bridge and recovered his equilibrium before another sweep could finish him.