The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

Moon Dawntreader stood alone, waiting, among the docks that drifted like seaweed on the smooth surface of the sea below Carbuncle. She looked down at the green-black water moving below the interstices of the pier, the secret instability beneath her feet. Oil slicks and stranger, less definable secretions made iridescent patterns on the impenetrable darkness between the moored ships. She watched them shift and re-form, hypnotized by their deliberate motion, by the familiar shouting and clangor, the smells of the sea and ships that filled the dockyards, filling her with nostalgia.

She no longer felt the kind of yearning for the past that had once made her ache to return to the places of her childhood; she no longer had the sense that her life in the city was only a long dream. That other world was gone now, not just because of the changing climate or shifting populations, but because of the years themselves, the thousand thousand separate moments that had settled over her memories like windblown sand. She could no longer clearly see the girl she had once been, who could not have imagined a life spent in a place such as this, when she didn’t feel the wind or the sun or the rain for weeks at a time, and never thought of the Sea Mother, let alone believed that She watched over every action, heard every prayer. In time it had all faded, until the life she lived now had grown to seem natural.

She looked up, feeling Carbuncle’s presence above her, not reassuring and protecting, but heavy and threatening, like a storm. Her restless gaze searched the ramp leading down to the harbor, this time finding what she had been searching for, the familiar form of Capella Goodventure. She suddenly remembered standing here half a lifetime ago, the newly chosen Queen, needing desperately to have time alone to make her peace with Sparks, and the sea … feeling Capella Good venture’s presence shadowing them, as the Goodventures followed her everywhere, spying on her, judging her….

But now it was Capella Goodventure she needed to see, privately, intimately; just the two of them and the sea, in this public place that was more private now than anywhere in the city above, even the palace. Her bodyguards, who were always nearby since the offworlders’ return, stood a respectful distance away, with their attention fixed intently on their surroundings.

Capella Goodventure reached her side and nodded in acknowledgment. There was respect, and, almost, warmth, in her gaze as their eyes met. “What is it you need, Lady?” There was also curiosity, about why they were meeting here, like this.

“It isn’t for me, but for the mere, that I need your help. The Chief Justice has lifted the ban on hunting them.”

Capella Goodventure’s mouth thinned. “I knew it would come to that. He is nothing but an offworlder, for all his pretenses.”

Moon bit her tongue against the need to explain, to justify, to argue against prejudices that had risen too easily in her own mind as she had made her way through the streets of the city today. She had come to respect Capella Goodventure, even to appreciate her. But the woman was unyielding in her beliefs, and her distrust of the offworlders was as complete as her conviction that they were not a government but an infestation. Looking into that face, with its lines of hard and pitiless judgment, she was suddenly afraid that if things continued, someday she would find her own face reflected there. And so she made no attempt to argue, but only said, “I don’t have the power to stop them. But I intend to impede them, in every way possible.”

Capella Goodventure’s eyes came alive. “What do you want us to do?”

“I want you to spread the word among the Summers—to ask their help, when they’re out on the sea, to mark the presence of offworlders hunting for the mers, and do anything in their power to disrupt the hunt, without endangering themselves. You can interfere with the Hegemony’s ships and equipment, or better, disperse mer colonies when hunters are approaching.” They had never been able to make the mers understand the threat of an attack by hunters. The mers seemed incapable of comprehending the brutal unpredictability of human nature.

“Of course,” Capella Goodventure said. “But it will be hard. The offworlders have their technology—” The word grated like a curse. “It will be hard to get around them.”

“I know.” Moon nodded. “I’ll get you equipment of your own that can show you their locations and interfere with their tracking devices. I can get sonics that will panic the mers and drive them into the sea, to force them to save themselves. I don’t like the idea of that either—” she insisted, as Capella Goodventure frowned. “But I’d rather use the offworlders’ equipment against them than see the mers slaughtered. Wouldn’t you?”

Capella Goodventure pulled irritably at the heavy cloth of her scarf. “I don’t like anything to do with the offworlders’ technology, as you well know,” she said. “Learning how to use their equipment, even if it is to use it against them, goes against everything I believe to be right.”

Moon tensed at the other woman’s threat of refusal. But Capella Goodventure shrugged, her hands knotting deep in the pockets of her loose trousers. “But for the mers—only for them, this has nothing to do with you, and don’t you take credit for forcing me—I accept your offer. Equipment will go on the ships and be used for the purpose intended, to defy its masters and protect the Sea’s Children, if that is the Lady’s will. And I am sure She will let us know whether it is Her will, or not. …” She leaned over the rail and spat three times, reverently, into the water listening below. It was only then that Moon realized Capella Goodventure was speaking not to her, but to the Sea Mother Herself.

“Thank you, Capella Goodventure.” Moon smiled, satisfied. “The Lady is well-pleased with your dedication.” Not sure, herself, which one of them she spoke for, or of, she offered her own prayer of resolution and dedication to the nameless, lifeless thing they both served.