“I know.” A startled creature spread its ruff of winking scales and shrieked in their path. “I know I’m as ready as I can be. But what if I’ll never ready enough be?” She had felt her belief in herself and in the trefoil tattoo she wore, the power that it represented, slowly reform as she learned the truth; but still she had not been able to begin an actual Transfer, for fear that a failure now would mean failure forever.
“You will ready be.” He smiled. “Because you must be.”
She managed a smile of her own as affirmation echoed in her mind. There were some things about the sibyl network that even the Kharemoughis couldn’t explain — anomalies, unpredictabilities — as though the all-knowing source of the sibyls’ inspiration was somehow imperfectly formed. Some of its answers were so involuted that no experts had ever been able to make them clear; sometimes it seemed to act toward ends of its own, although ordinarily it only reacted. This time it had chosen to act, and chosen her as its tool… She wouldn’t fail; she couldn’t. But what was her goal, if Sparks no longer wanted her? To get him back. I will. I can. She tightened her fists, not letting it go. We belong to each other. He belongs to me.
“That’s better,” Aspundh said. “Now, what final questions will you of me ask? Is anything still unclear?”
She nodded slowly, asking the one question that had troubled her from the beginning. “Why does the Hegemony want it on Tiamat a secret kept, that sibyls everywhere are? Why do you the Winters tell that we evil are, or crazy?”
He frowned as though she had broken some particularly strong taboo. “I cannot that to you explain, Moon. It’s too complicated.”
“But it’s not right. You said that sibyls vital were — they only did good things for a world.” She realized suddenly what that said about the Hegemony’s intentions; realized how much more she had learned here than simply what she had been taught.
Aspundh’s expression told her that he realized it, too, and regretted it — because he was powerless to stop it. “I hope I haven’t done, and shan’t do, too great a harm to my own world.” He looked away. “You must to Tiamat returned be. But I pray that it no grief to Kharemough brings.”
She had no answer.
They left the fragrant pathway through the flowering sillipha, wound into the topiary maze until the marble shrine appeared, reflecting pastel skylight, at its hidden heart. Aspundh went on into the shadowed interior; Moon sat on a dew-damp marble bench to wait. The scent of propitiatory incense reached her on the rising breeze; she wondered what prayers KR Aspundh spoke to his ancestors tonight.
Birds whose colors would be strident in the daylight fluttered down into her lap, pastel and gray, murmuring placidly. She smoothed their delicate feathered backs, remembering that it was for the last time; that after tomorrow there would be no peaceful gardens, but only the Black Gate… She rubbed her arms, suddenly feeling the night’s chill.
21
“Citizen, what are you doing in my office?” Jerusha glared across the landfill of official refuse heaped by her terminal and mounting in drifts to the corners of the desk, in the corners of the room. “I was told to come here. About my permits.” The shopkeeper twisted his ties, midway between uncertainty and truculence. “They said you’d tell me why I haven’t heard any th—”
“Yes, I know that. And any sergeant could look it up for you, any patrolman with half a brain!” Gods, if I could get through a day without raising my voice… if I could get through one hour. She ran a hand through the tight red-black curls of her hair; tugged. “Who the hell sent you here?”
“Inspector Man—”
“—tagnes,” she echoed him. “Well, he sent you to the wrong place. Go back to the front desk and tell the duty officer to find out.”
“But he said—”
“Don’t take no for an answer this time!” She waved him toward the door, already looking down at the half-read report still waiting her acknowledgment on the screen, reaching for the intercom button. “Sergeant, wake up your brain and screen these idiots! What do you think you’re out there for?”
“Hell of a way to run a world, damn—” The invective was lost as the door shut behind the shop man
“Sorry, Commander,” the sergeant said, sullenly disembodied. “Shall I sent in the next one?”
“Yes.” No. No, no more. “And get me Mantag-No, cancel that.” She let up on the speaker button. She could bust Mantagnes right off the force for his harassment… but if she did shed have open mutiny on her hands, instead of just open resentment. In the years since she had become Commander her position with the force had gone from bad to worse. And he knows it. He knows, the bastard… She stared at the report printout blindly. Their main computer had crashed monumentally — months ago — and thrown their entire records system into chaos. Even now it barely functioned at half normal efficiency; even Kharemoughi expertise hadn’t been able to put things right, because somehow they were missing the critical components… She had been trying to get their records back in order for months; trying to get through this one report for an hour, half a minute at a time, getting nowhere. She punched APPROVED, and let it pass unread. Getting nowhere. Sliding backwards, being buried alive-She rummaged among the crumpled, empty packets in her desk drawer for one with any iesta pods left in it. Damn, almost gone — how will I ever make it through the day?
The door opened, not answering her question, and Captain — oh, gods, what’s his name? — entered and saluted. “Captain KerlaTinde reporting, Commander,” as if he hadn’t expected her to remember. She was used to the coldness, and the insolent tone, by now. The force hated her guts, almost every single man of them, and it was close to mutual by now. Discipline had gone to hell, but she couldn’t demote everybody on the force — and she had tried everything else. They would not obey her: because she was a woman, yes (and damn the day she had decided to be anything more)… but also because she had taken the place that rightfully belonged to Man tagnes. And because it had been the Queen’s idea. They believed she was the Queen’s puppet; and how could she prove they were wrong, when Arienrhod’s strings had trapped her like spiderweb, held her suspended here between heaven and hell, draining away her will to continue?
“What is it, KerlaTinde?” unable to keep the sharpness out of her own voice.
“The other officers have asked me to speak for them, ma’am.” The word was heavy with incongruity. “We want an end to enforced patrol duty by officers here in the city. We feel that the duty belongs to the patrolmen; it’s damaging to the prestige of an officer to be forced to harass citizens in the street.”
“You’d rather let the citizens harass each other?” She frowned, too easily, leaning forward. “What important duty do you feel you should be attending to instead?”
“Attending to our designated duties! We don’t have time enough to get through all the file work as it is, without patrolling as well.” His broad face matched her, frown for frown. He looked pointedly at the stacks of tape containers on her desk.
“I know, KerlaTinde,” following his gaze. “I’ve cut out every piece of red tape I can.” And you should see the scars Hovanesse put on me for it. “I know the computer crapping out made it all ten times worse; but damn it, our main job here is still protecting the Hedge’s citizens, and it has to be done.”
“Then give us something worth doing for once!” KerlaTinde swept his hand across the nonexistent view from her window. “Not picking up drunks out of the gutter. Let us go after the big-time criminals, get some convictions that would mean something.”
“You’ll never get those convictions. It’s a waste of time.” Gods, am I really saying that? Am I really the one, the same one, who stood there where he’s standing and said what he’s saying to me? She wadded an empty iesta packet into a painful ball below the desk edge. No… I’m not the same one. But it was true, what she had just said to him…