The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

Sparks Dawntreader entered Tor Starhiker’s new gaming club, feeling an unnerving flicker of déjà vu. Nothing had changed. His memories told him so, even though his eyes said that this club did not really resemble anything he had seen in the old days, when he had roamed the Street with a bottomless credit rating, playing the decadent jade as if his life depended on it; secretly Starbuck, sniffing out information to help Arienrhod keep on top of the offworlders.

But the feel was right; his inner eye knew this place. Tor Starhiker had once run the best club on the Street, and she had the best club now, even it was only by default. He saw her across the room—recognizable, at least, not transformed completely as she had been in the old days. Then she had been decorated like a puppet, to suit the bizarre fantasies of the offworlder who had really owned the club, the living nightmare they had called the Source.

Tor lifted a hand, acknowledging him. He nodded, but stayed where he was. He had not wanted to come here, had told himself he would not come… . But still, like a man sliding helplessly down a muddy slope, he had found himself stepping through the doorway….

“Hello, Sparks.” A hand took hold of his arm, drawing him around.

“Emerine,” he said, only half surprised. She smiled at him, and he saw the age lines that bracketed her full-lipped mouth deepen. He hadn’t looked at her closely in a long time—the changes in her face were startling; unlike the changes in his own, which had crept up on him day by day over the years. But she was still a beautiful woman, with her hair dark and long, her eyes the color of the sea. “All alone—?” she said, with gentle reprimand. “Join us, and you won’t be.” She drew him after her.

He followed her willingly across the room to the secluded corner where Kirard Set Wayaways and half a dozen of his other friends from the old days were sitting He noticed without really thinking about it that Kirard Set’s wife was not among them.

He sat down with them, feeling his sense of having slipped outside of time deepen as he sank under the weight of their welcoming hands, the spell of the hypnotically strobing lights and bizarre sound effects of the games that were the backdrop to their spoken greetings.

“Have some of this.” Kirard Set pushed a bottle of tlaloc at him, and a cup. “A survivor of the time before, just like we are. Hard to believe, isn’t it?” He gestured, filling the air with a cloud of cinnamon-scented smoke. “Seems just like old times… .” His smile turned rueful, and genuine. “I feel young again—reborn. Gods, I never realized how miserable I was, lost in the void, until now, when I have something to look forward to again besides my own death.”

“Yes ” Sparks nodded, feeling an unexpected pang of empathy as he echoed the murmured sentiments of the others around the table. He sipped the tlaloc, its bittersweetness vaporizing as it touched his tongue, filling his head, matching his mood. He sighed.

“Tor Starhiker has done all right for herself, for a common deckhand, I must say.” Kirard Set raised his head again, looking away into the room. “She’s made good use of the Queen’s favor, and a certain native shrewdness.” He rested his chin on his palm.

“What about the restaurant?” Sparks asked, leaning back in his seat.

“She’s still part-owner, but she leaves the running of it to Shotwyn now Business is better than ever, I hear; but dealing with practical matters is not Shotwyn’s strong suit. He’s fit to be tied.” Kirard Set chuckled.

“I suppose he’ll just have to find someone else to tie him up, from now on …” Cabber Lu Greenfield said, smirking.

Laughter spread like ripples over water around the table, until Sparks found himself unexpectedly laughing.

“Good!” Kirard Set said, his eyes shining. He reached out, squeezing Sparks’s arm. “That’s what I like to see. We’ve all missed your company, you know.”

Sparks looked back at him, waiting for the usual venomous coda; surprised when it didn’t come. There were only nodding heads, smiling faces all around him. “I guess I’d forgotten how much I missed the old days too,” he murmured. He looked away from the too-curious scrutiny of his former friends, feeling suddenly as if he sat in a room with mirrored walls. He let his eyes wander, taking in the random stimuli of light and noise.

“Look,” Emerine said, pointing. “Isn’t that your son? Tammis!” she called.

Spark found Tammis’s face in the crowd as the boy turned, startled at hearing his name. Tammis looked back at them, and his expression was stark with guilt He turned away again and disappeared.

“Well, what was that all about?” Emerine murmured. “I thought your son was a happily married man, Sparks. What’s he looking for here, looking so guilty, and all alone...?”

Sparks frowned, his hand tightening around his cup; hearing implications inside the implications. “He’s not my son.” He took another sip of tlaloc, tasting only the bitterness.

“Come now,” Kirard Set said gently. “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? Just because he’s out wandering the night with the rest of us lost souls, troubled in his marriage and looking for something he can’t get at home …”

Sparks looked back at him in sudden anger, remembering the wedding feast, the upstairs hall. “He’s not my son,” he said flatly. “I have no children.” He saw Ariele suddenly m his mind, the expression on her face as he had almost collided with her, outside the hidden alcove where he had caught his wife watching BZ Gundhalmu like a voyeur. The look on her face, always so much like her mother’s face, told him she had heard everything that had passed between them: Even Ariele and Tammis … They’re his!

“Da?” she had said, reaching out to him, catching at his sleeve. “Da—!” she had cried, as he jerked his arm free and pushed past her without a word, unable in that moment even to bear the sight of her. From that moment on he had not spoken to her or her brother again.

Kirard Set raised his eyebrows. “You mean the rumors really are true? About Moon and that offworlder—the one who’s come back as Chief Justice? Is he really what’s come between you and her? Is that why he supports her every whim so passionately?”

Sparks shrugged, a knotted, jerky motion. “Yes,” he murmured.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kirard Set said, as if he actually meant it. Sparks glanced at him dubiously, and wondered how many of those rumors Kirard Set had set in motion himself. “Are they actually … seeing each other, in secret?”

Sparks shook his head, studying his hands with sudden intentness. “No. She won’t let it happen. It would compromise her position too much. But they make love to each other with their eyes, whenever they’re in the same room… .” He shut his own eyes, but still he saw them, gazing at each other.

“My old friend,” Kirard Set said, touching his arm again, “this battle was lost a long time ago, even if you only bleed from it now. Moon has not been the woman you loved, and I respected, for years. You know that. Leave her and that tightassed Kharemoughi to their sterile futility. There are layers within layers here, ways that were closed that are now open again, and will lead you to satisfactions you never dreamed of—”

Sparks met Kirard Set’s gaze, as curiosity forced its way up through his darker preoccupation. “What are you talking about?”

“We are part of a … secret order that has members on all the worlds of the Hegemony, and an ancient lineage, independent of any government or group— including the Hegemony itself. We have our own rules, and our own goals, and our own rewards, which have the potential to surpass anything you could imagine… . Does this interest you?”

Sparks looked away from the sudden intensity of Kirard Set’s eyes, searching the other faces around him at the table. They were all people he knew—or had thought he knew, years ago, in Winter. Then, green from Summer and longing for acceptance into their shining, sophisticated dreamworld, he would have done anything to be one of them.… He had done anything, whatever they asked, until finally he believed he had seen and done everything, that nothing would ever surprise or repel or humiliate him again. That he was shockproof.

He realized suddenly that he wanted to feel that way again; to feel nothing at all, except sensation…. “Tell me more about it,” he murmured.

Kirard Set smiled. “Before we can do that, there is the matter of your initiation.” Someone’s hand settled on Sparks’s knee beneath the table as Kirard Set spoke. Sparks jerked in surprise as the hand squeezed his thigh, slid inward along his leg. “A demonstration of your sincerity in wanting to join us,” Kirard Set went on evenly, “a series of tests designed to prove your trustworthiness … your devotion, your receptivity, your flexibility … your endurance.”

Another hand joined the first under the table, sliding in between his thighs, moving with brazen confidence to cup the sudden painful bulge that strained his pants. More hands roamed his hidden lower body, massaged him, caressed him, while his own hands tightened spasmodically over the table edge; but he made no move to push them away.

Kirard Set’s eyes never left his face, intent and knowing. “I think you’ll enjoy the challenge. I know you’ll succeed admirably.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we go?”

Sparks finished his drink; his hand trembled, the tlaloc exploded his senses with bittersweetness. “I’m ready,” he whispered. He pushed to his feet, the hands falling away from him, a press of bodies surrounding him now. He could feel their heat, dizzy with it, as they laid hands on him again to guide him toward the door.