“You fixed it, huh? Lucky for you, Blue-boy.” Blodwed stooped down as she entered the chamber, picked up the broken distance finder, which Gundhalinu and Moon had repaired working together through the new morning. Her voice barely disguised relief; but Gundhalinu heard only the threat, and frowned. “Hey, what did you do that for?”
White birds fluttered up from Moon’s shoulders; the pair of starls slunk under the cot at the sound of her voice. “To give them a little freedom,” Moon said, more confidently than she felt.
“They’ll get out! That’s what I keep them in cages for — they’d run away if I didn’t, the stupid things.”
“No, they won’t.” Moon held out her palm, filled with bits of bread. The birds circled down again onto her arm, jostling for position. She stroked their curling feathers. “Look. This is all they really want. Keeping them in a cage won’t make them yours; not if you know you can’t ever open the door.”
Blodwed came toward her across the room, the birds flew up again. Moon put the crumbs into Blodwed’s hand; but the hand made a fist and she dropped them onto the floor. “Screw that. I
don’t want that. I want a story, Blue.” She moved on across the room to Gundhalinu, sat down on the cot beside him. “About the Old Empire, some more.”
He moved away from her pointedly. “I don’t know any more stories. You know them all.”
“I don’t care. Just do it!” She shook his arm. “Read that book again. Read it to her, she’s a sibyl too.”
Moon glanced up from watching the birds peck at crumbs around her feet.
“Sit, sibyl.” Blodwed gestured imperiously. “You’ll like this. It’s all about the first sibyl that ever was and the end of the Old Empire. It’s got space pirates, and whole artificial planets, and aliens, and super weapons zap!” She disintegrated Moon with her finger, laughing.
“Really?” Moon said, looking at Gundhalinu. “Do they really know about the first sibyl?” He shrugged.
“He said it was all true.” Blodwed’s enthusiasm and her voice rose. “Come on, Blue. Read the part where she saves her True Lover from the pirates.”
“He saved her.” Gundhalinu coughed his indignation.
“Look, just read it.” She leaned over, the starls scuttled out with clicking claws as she groped under the cot. She found the battered book, tossed it at Gundhalinu. “And in the end, she thinks he’s dying, and he thinks she’s dead; it’s so sad.” She grinned ghoulishly.
“Blodwed, I’ll tell you a story,” Moon said suddenly, clutching inspiration’s key. She sat down cross-legged; the starls came to her, scattering the birds, and laid their pointy muzzles in her lap. “About me… and my True Lover, and tech runners and Carbuncle.” And you will listen, and understand. She felt the strength of the inspiration suddenly take hold of her, almost as though she were compelled.
She told the story again; letting down the barriers that kept her emotions back, letting herself see Sparks’s face laughing in sunlight, hear his music drifting over the sea, feel the fire-bright nearness of him… feel his going away as it wrenched a part of her soul out of her. And she left nothing out, of the things she had seen and done “You mean you didn’t even know it’d take five years to go to Kharemough? You really were stupid!”)
(“I’m learning.”)
— the people who had tried to help her; the price they had paid for it. “And then on the man in black, who was killing the mers, I saw the medal, his medal… It was Sparks, I f-finally found him.” She looked down, pressing a hand against her purple cheek; remembering only his caress.
“You mean… he’s Starbuck?” Blodwed whispered, awed. “Holy shit. Your own True Lover killed the mers… And — and you still love him?”
Moon ‘nodded silently; her mouth trembled. Damn everything, I do! She held a long breath, fighting for control; struggling back into the present to measure Blodwed’s reaction. Blodwed wiped her eyes surreptitiously, scratched her head, her cropped-ofF hair standing out like straw. “Oh… it’s not fair. Now he’s going to die, and he’ll never even know.”
“What?” Moon stiffened.
“The Change,” Gundhalinu said. “The last Festival, the end of Winter. The end of the Snow Queen — and Starbuck. They drown together.” He looked back at her with unspoken understanding. “It’s the end of everything.”
Moon rose up on her knees, pushed the starls away, breaking the spell that had held her holding Blodwed. “Mother of Us All-there’s hardly any time left! Blodwed, you have to let us go! I have to find him, I have to get to Carbuncle before the Change.”
Blodwed stood up, her face turning hard. “I don’t have to do anything! You just made all that up, so I’d let you go. Well, I won’t!”
“It’s not a lie! Starbuck is Sparks, and he’ll die… I can’t have come all this way just for that!” She struggled to keep panic from taking the rest of her voice. “If I can get to Carbuncle, BZ can help me find Sparks in time. And if he doesn’t get back there in time, his own people will go off world and leave him behind. There’s not even a fortnight left—”
“Then in a fortnight it’ll all be over, and you won’t even care about it any more, either of you. So you can stay here with me, forever.” Blodwed folded her arms, her eyes fierce with betrayal.
“In a fortnight my life will be meaningless…” Moon got up, feeling the walls of stone close in on her. “Please, please, Blodwed! Help us!”
“I don’t care if it’s all true! You don’t care about me; why should I care about you?” Blodwed caught the sleeve of Moon’s tunic and jerked at it, ripping the fragile cloth halfway up her arm. She went out, slamming the gate behind her.
“I don’t understand it,” BZ murmured, between irony and despair. “The stories I read always have happy endings.”
Lying sleepless far into the night, she felt the starls wake suddenly beside her, listening. Listening with them she heard the covert sound of footsteps coming back from the silent camp beyond. She sat up, blinking in the heater’s glow. BZ sat up on his cot; she realized that he must have lain awake with her in silent misery half the night. Oh, Lady, she’s changed her mind…
But the gate swung open, and the figure that took form in the light was not Blodwed. Moon heard Gundhalinu’s indrawn breath. She sat as still as death, paralyzed.
“Wake up, little sibyl. I’ve come for a few of your tricks… and to teach you a few of mine.” Taryd Roh came on across the chamber, shrugging off his parka.
Moon struggled to her feet, moving in slow motion. He doesn’t believe… Mother, please Mother, let me wake up! She stumbled back as the dream did not dissolve and her prayers flew up unheeded. She felt Gundhalinu’s hands grip her shoulders and pull her to him.
“Leave her alone, you son of a bitch, unless you want to lose what mind you have.”
Taryd Roh laughed. “You don’t believe that, any more than I do! Keep out of it, Blue, or this time I’ll show you what real pain is.”
BZ’s grip lost all strength on her shoulders. His arms dropped, he backed away. Moon clenched her teeth on a cry. But as Taryd Roh lunged across the gap between them, Gundhalinu moved forward, struck at Taryd Roh’s throat with a well-trained blow.
But there was no strength behind it, and Taryd Roh blocked his arm, twisted it, threw him aside into the cages. Gundhalinu pushed away from the wall, but before he could recover his balance Taryd Roh’s heavy fist clubbed him to his knees, and a boot knocked him sprawling. And then Taryd Roh had reached her again, his arms were around her. His mouth covered hers; Moon twisted her face frantically until she found his lip. She sank her teeth into it, tasted his blood mingling with her saliva.
He knocked her away with a shout of pain. She half fell, staggering up again as she tried to keep beyond Ms reach. “You’re cursed, Taryd Roh! You have the sibyl-madness now, Motherless, and there’s no hope for you!” Her voice shrilled like the screech of the white birds beating above her head. But he still came after her, blood shining on his face and another kind of madness in his eyes. Moon clung to the wire of the locked gate, screaming, “Blodwed! Blodwed!” His hand closed on her neck, she gasped and lost her voice as pain leaped out along her arms, paralyzing her. He jerked her away.