38

Moon woke suddenly with a sigh in the warm embrace of someone’s arms. Sparkle, I had such a strange dream… She opened her eyes, jerked at the unexpectedness of the room opening out before her. And remembering, she looked down along her side to find a warm brown arm freckled with pink secure beneath her own. For just a moment pain caught inside her; but then she smiled, without guilt or regret, twining her fingers in his. She shifted carefully on the narrow bed-sofa to study BZ’s sleeping face, remembering how he had watched over her in the silent dawns. Remembering the poems of his heart that he spoke to her wondering ears, as he gave himself to her at last, my star, white bird, wildflower garden… until she had cried out the words that she had no right to say, and no power to deny, I love you, I love you…

She stroked his cheek, but he did not stir; rested her head on his shoulder. Here in this room, this space apart from their separate lives, they had shared love, and they had given each other something else as precious — an affirmation of their own value.

The sounds of the Festival still reached her, muted but unchanging; the level of light flowing in through the window had not changed either. (“I’ve never done this in the light,” he had murmured. “We’re so beautiful… Why was I ashamed?”) She had no feel for whether it was night or day, or how long they had slept. Her tj body was sluggish and unwilling, telling her it had not been long enough. But she couldn’t afford any more time. BZ still slept like the dead, and she moved out from under his arm as quietly as she could, without trying to wake him; certain that she could find her way as far as the mask maker alley alone. She dressed and slipped out the door.

The crowds seemed as vibrant, as endless, as before, as though one shift of revelers merged imperceptibly into the next, an infinite wheel. She kept as close to the building walls as she could, forcing her way through the eddying backwaters around vendors’ booths and outdoor cafes. She grabbed a piece of spiced meat from a table as she passed, choked it down, her throat tight and her mind sparking with the feedback of sheer energy from every side.

At last she broke through into the Citron Alley, where the crowd current slowed and grew less deep. She found her way to the go tanery entrance, went one more shop to the mask maker Its yellow green double door was firmly shut; she beat on the upper half with her fist, throwing all her frustration and urgency into it. “Open up! Open up!”

The top half of the door opened, catching her in mid-cry; she ended with a laugh of triumph. A middle-aged woman with dark hair in a heavy plait looked out at her, through her, with eyes sleep reddened… with eyes that did not see her. “Yes, who is it?” wearily, a little impatiently.

“Are you — are you Fate Ravenglass, the mask maker She wondered what she had been expecting, relieved that this woman wasn’t it.

“Yes.” The woman rubbed her face. “But all my masks are gone. You’ll have to go to one of the displays to look at them. There are warehouses and vacant stores full of them all over the city.”

“No, I don’t want a mask. I want to ask you about — Sparks. Sparks Dawntreader.”

“Sparks?” The reaction she had waited for, prayed for, filled the woman’s face. She opened the bottom of the door. “Come in then! Come in.”

Moon entered the shop, blinked with the dimming of light. As her eyes readjusted, she saw boxes and baskets piled in precisely ordered confusion in the room’s four quarters — remnants of cloth, face forms, feathers, bangles, beads. Her foot skidded on a bead as she moved forward; she picked it up carefully and held it in her hand. The walls of the room were empty now, but they bristled with hooks where a hundred masks must have hung like rare flowers until only two or three days ago… The last wall space was not empty. On it hung one mask all alone, and she stood staring, transfixed by the shimmering vision of a summer’s day: mist-rainbows reflecting in pied pools, emerald-velvet moss underfoot and the green-gold silk of new grasses springing up on the hillsides; hoards of wildflowers, frag ant with life, berries and birds’ wings dappled with shadow; and in their midst a face of radiant innocence captive to wonder, crowned by the rays of the twin suns. “Is that — the Summer Queen?” she whispered, awed.

The woman turned to face it instinctively. “That is her mask. Who she will be, herself, is still a mystery known only to the gods.”

“To the Lady,” Moon said, without thinking.

“Yes, of course.” The mask maker smiled a little sadly; Moon realized all the things this mask would mean to a Winter, and that none of them were the same things that moved her.

“You’ve made her so beautiful; when she’s come to take your life away.”

“Thank you.” The woman smiled again, proudly this time. “But that’s the price any artist pays — to lose a part of herself each time she creates something she hopes will live on after her. And perhaps if I make her fair and kind, the Summer Queen will fulfill the prophecy, and be those things to us.”

“She will,” Moon murmured. But she won’t understand you — so how can she be?

“Now, tell me, Summer girl” — Moon glanced around in half surprise—”why you’ve come asking about Sparks Dawntreader.”

“I’m his cousin, Moon Dawntreader.”

“Moon!” The mask maker frowned at nothing. “Wait, wait just a minute.” She went surely through a doorway into another room, and was back in a moment wearing a peculiar headband. “He told me so much about you, the two of you. Come over by the door, where I can see you better with my ‘third eye.”“

Moon obeyed. The woman held her with her face to the light, slowly grew rigid. “Sparks said that you were like her… like her…” She seemed to shiver suddenly.

“Like who?” Moon forced the words out through stiff lips.

“Like Arienrhod, like the Snow Queen. But I’ve seen you, another time, in another place, somewhere.” She lifted her hand to map ^ Moon’s face with sensitive fingertips, keeping her from asking another question. Fate led her back inside to the one round, glue dribbled table with chairs that was all the room’s real furniture. “Where have I seen you, Moon?” A large gray cat appeared out of nowhere on the tabletop, came to sniff questioningly at Moon’s hands. Moon scratched him absently under the chin.

“I — I don’t think you have.” Moon sat down, following Fate’s motion, unclenched her fist and laid the single red bead on the table.

Fate’s breath caught. “Yes. You’re a sibyl.”

Moon’s hands flew to her throat. “No—”

“Your cousin told me; it’s all right.” Fate shook her head reassuringly. “Your secret is safe. And it means I can trust you with mine now.” She pulled down the high neckline of her sleeping gown, exposing her throat.

Moon felt her own breath stop. “You’re a sibyl, here? But how? How do you dare?” She remembered Danaquil Lu, and the scars he wore as a warning.

“I have a very — select clientele.” Fate turned her face away. “Maybe that’s selfish of me, maybe I’m not doing all I can with the gift, but… I feel that there is a need for me to be here, somehow. As an… outlet, if nothing else.” Her hands found a stray feather on the tabletop. She picked it up, running it between her fingers. The cat watched her, its ears flickering. “I have strange ideas about sibyls, you see; maybe they’re absurd, but…” Her shoulders twitched.

Moon leaned forward. “You mean, you think there might be sibyls on other worlds than this one?”

The feather fluttered down, the cat pounced. “Yes! Oh, by the gods, have you felt it too?” Fate reached out for reassurance.

“I’ve seen it.” Moon touched her hand. “I met a sibyl on another world. There are sibyls everywhere, part of an information network the Old Empire left to help us now. The Hegemony lies to us.”