But for the good they could do humans — the ultimate good of eternal youth — they must die. He had always believed that the myth of mers being immortal, and granting immortality to humans, was only an old tale… until he had come to Carbuncle. And then he had met the Queen, who had reigned for one hundred and fifty years . and Arienrhod had placed the vial of viscous silver liquid into his hands, and he had let the spray fall into his throat, and realized that he too could stay young forever.
And so he had stood by, paying for his immortality with his presence, betraying all that he had ever been or believed in, while the Hounds netted and drowned their helpless victims somewhere below.
Then they had hauled the carcasses aboard the ship, and shoving him aside like the useless thing he was, they had squatted down with their knives to rip open the dappled throats. They drained away the precious mer blood while their tentacles reddened and the deck turned slippery under his feet.
And the red leaked back into the sea, and the mutilated bodies followed, their dark eyes still incredulous with death. Wasted… all wasted! He had turned away, sick at heart, long before the butchery was finished, trying to lose himself in the infinite vista of ocean and sky. But there was no escape from the splash of carcasses plunged back into the sea, too late, too late, or the savage lashing of the water as the scavengers gathered, defiling the green-blue purity with the ecstasy of their feeding. The Sea Mother in her pitiless wisdom wasted nothing, and cursed the wantonness of those who did…
“Sparks?” Fate’s voice called him back; the sheltering city closed around him, keeping him from the Lady’s curses, denying that they even existed at all.
“It was so ugly — it was all wasted’ I couldn’t—” He shook his head. “But I’m going to do it right this time. I can gut a dead mer, I’m not some superstitious Mother lover any more.” Remembering the disdain of the Hounds, which had been all too plain even without words; remembering Arienrhod’s soothing condescension as she set free the devils of doubt and self-disgust he carried back with him to Carbuncle. And then she had handed him the gilded vial of the water of life, without comment.
“No, I suppose you’re not, are you?” Again the regret. “Death is never an easy thing to face. That’s why we all long to taste the water of life. And we take it for ourselves because our own death is the hardest thing of all… We do what we think we have to.” She reached out, searched the air for his arm.
“Uh, not to interrupt—” A stranger’s voice came at them over his shoulder. “Got a delivery here.”
Sparks turned, looking up with Fate at the two figures standing in the alley, one drab, one inhuman—”You!”
The faceless face of the servo Pollux regarded him with unchanging nothingness, but Tor’s gray eyes registered along a scale from incomprehension to acute chagrin. “Dawntreader?” She shifted from foot to foot. “Hey, uh… Well, how’ve you been, kid? Looks like you’ve done all right for yourself,” raising an eyebrow. “I hardly recognized you.”
“No thanks to you if I have.”
“Yeah, well…” She glanced away self-consciously. “Hi, Fate. Got your new load of trims together finally. You want Pollux to stack them for you?”
Fate began to push her trays aside, clearing a path to the door. “I’ll show him where. I didn’t know you were a friend of Sparks ’s, Tor.”
“She isn’t.” Sparks stood up and stood aside as Pollux moved unconcernedly toward the step, towing the floating platform of containers. He watched Fate disappear inside, moving easily into familiar surroundings, and Pollux after her. But he blocked Tor as she tried to follow, with an arm across the doorway. “Uh-uh.” He backed her around and up against the building wall. “Let’s talk.
About what you did to me at the starlbaiting. About what you did with everything I owned, after you cleaned me out.”
Tor pressed back against the peeling paint, her eyes looking everywhere but at his face. “Listen, Sparks , I’m really sorry about that, you know? I really hated sticking you like that, I mean, you were so trusting… and so stupid… But I owed my life to Hardknot over at the Sea and Stars; I lost part of the casino’s daily take I was delivering up the line. If I didn’t pay it back shed’ve had it taken out of my hide, you know what I mean? It was either you or me, rfrankly. And I figured it’d teach you a lesson you needed, anyway.” She shrugged, beginning to recover her nerve.
“What did you do with my stuff?”
“Pawned it, what do you think?”
He laughed once. “How much did you get for it?” almost casualy.
“Birdseed, what do you th—” Her voice choked off as his arm came up and across her throat, pinning her against the wall again. “Ye gods!” She squirmed, trying to look away from something in his eyes. “What’s gotten into you, kid?”
“I learned your lesson.” He put more pressure against the arm, enjoying the expression on her face. “And now you owe me, Tor, and I coulu take it out of your hide right now.”
“You — you wouldn’t do that?” He felt her swallow in sudden fright; her hands came up, tightened over his arm. “What are you—”
“ Sparks , what are you doing!” Fate’s astonished voice.
He blinked as the haze of his wounded pride cleared, and let Tor go. “You aren’t worth the trouble.”
Tor sighed noisily, feeling her throat with her hands. “Just — just a misunderstanding, Fate. I’ll get you the money, kid. I mean, come payday—”
“Forget it.” He turned away, feeling his face hot with anger and embarrassment, wondering how much of it Fate could see. But something Tor had blurted in the diarrhea of her excuses caught in his mind, at the root of his bad humor, and he turned back again with calculated vengeance showing. “On the other hand — no, don’t forget about it. You owe me. and I’m going to tell you how you can pay me back. And there might even be something in it for you, if you play it right.” He pulled out his credit card, and held it up to her face.
Tor looked at it blankly, “Huh?” She reached for it, hesitant; he pulled it away.
“You’re a runner for the Sea and Stars, you said. You must know plenty about who controls what here in the Maze, you must hear a lot of interesting gossip around… ?”
“Oh, no — I don’t know anything, kid. I keep my ears closed.” She shook her head, shutting her eyes against temptation. “I just run a few errands on the side, for a little extra credit at the tables, that’s all.”
“Don’t give me that.” He frowned. “But maybe you don’t know enough to find out the things I want to know.” Inspiration struck him, blinding. “I know somebody who does, so it doesn’t matter! You can get the information out of him. and I can’t. You’re going to take care of it for me, take care of him. understand?”
“No.” She shook her head cguin. “What the hell have you gotten into, anyway? What’re you trying to get me into?”
“I work for somebody too. somebody — up the line. Somebody who wants to know what the opposition’s doing. And there’s a man named Herne who knows it all. only he’s down on his luck. You’re going to pick him up and help him oat; and he’s going to be so grateful he’s going to tell you anything you want to know.”
“Ha! I know a Herne, a big spender, and if he’s down on his luck now he can rot. Him and some of his buddies were drug ugly, and he tried to—” The word wouldn’t come out; her hands tightened over the seal of her coveralls. “I had bruises in places I wouldn’t show my own mother before Pollux pulled him of! me and changed his mind.” She glanced past Fate’s silent witnessing at the phlegmatic metal being in the doorway. “He may be a dumb machine, but he’s a damn sight more of a man than the ones who program him.”
Sparks grinned at the borrowed vision of Herne ’s discomfiture. “He really must have been drugged out of his mind to pick on a—”