The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

“Ho, Dawntreader—”

Sparks looked up from his blank-eyed scrutiny of the empty tabletop, to see Kirard Set Wayaways picking a path toward him across the crowded dance floor of Starhiker’s.

“I was hoping I’d find you here.” Kirard Set smiled, stopping in front of the table with the knowing look that Sparks had begun to grow tired of.

“What is it?” Sparks asked, leaning back in his seat.

Wayaways slid into the booth across from him. “I have a message to deliver … and so do you.”

Sparks raised his eyebrows, more than a little surprised. “Is this a Brotherhood matter?”

“Of course.” Kirard Set rubbed his chin, glancing idly into the crowd. “The Source has been called away; business back on Ondinee. He expects to return to Tiamat soon—”

“The heady joys of hyperlight transit,” Sparks muttered, feeling envy stir the sediment of his long-ago dreams.

“We should drink a toast to progress,” Kirard Set said wryly, “but we have no drinks.” He gestured at the empty table surface, his face inviting explanation, or invitation.

Sparks shrugged, without making either. “What’s the Source’s leaving got to do with me?”

Kirard Set’s congeniality faded, replaced by an equally unsettling directness.

“We are 10 continue our present activities with the processing laboratories, and diverting of supplies…. The Newhavener, TerFauw, is in charge at Persephonë’s until Jaakola returns.”

“You said there was a message to deliver.”

Kirard Set hesitated, in a way that only made Sparks’s unease intensify. “It’s a message for your wife. About Anele, and the Source’s man Kullervo.”

“What about them?” he said, too sharply.

Kirard Set leaned back, as if he were getting out of range. “You already know they’ve been seeing each other… . What you may not know is that Kullervo is an addict—addicted to a drug he created himself, a kind of bastard form of the water of life. He calls it the ‘water of death.’ It’s fatal. And he’s given it to Ariele.”

Sparks jerked upright, gripping the table edge with his hands. “What?” he whispered.

Wayaways suddenly had trouble looking at him. “The Source wants something from the Queen, or Gundhalinu,” he muttered. “He wants them to understand that unless they provide it, he will cut off Ariele’s supply of the drug.” He reached into his overshirt. “Here. This is a tape of what happens to the … addict. I wouldn’t watch it if I were you.” He tossed the tape button onto the tabletop.

Sparks picked it up, held it between nerveless fingers. He looked at Wayaways again. “Where are they?” he said. His hand fisted over the tape. “Where’s he got her? By all the gods—”

“It’s not your problem, for gods’ sakes!” Kirard Set hissed. “You belong to the Brotherhood now! Your wife is cuckolding you with the father of her bastard children—Ariele isn’t even your child, you said it yourself. Get a grip on things, man. Everything’s that’s happening is to your gain—your gain, if you play your part in this well. All you have to do is give the Queen the message. Claim you were accosted by faceless strangers, act as distraught as you need to; but always remember that it’s got to be an act—”

Remember. Sparks sat rigidly, forcing himself to remember the hard, useful lessons that time and the Brotherhood had taught him. He inhaled deeply, concentrating on control. “Only an act,” he repeated, without expression. He looked down at his hand, lying loose and open now on the table surface. He put the tape bead into his belt pouch, before he looked up again at Kirard Set. “What does the Source think they have, that no one else does? Besides each other, I mean?” His mouth twisted sardonically.

A faint, relieved smile pulled at the corners of Kirard Set’s lips. “It’s something about the mers.”

Sparks frowned. “They don’t know anything about the mers that I don’t know.”

“Maybe Survey has given them new information.”

He shook his head. “Jaakola has Survey connections all over the Hegemony. He could find out something like that without having to--” to kill my daughter— “resort to blackmail, for gods’ sakes.”

“Then maybe they really do know something that no one else knows.” Kirard Set shrugged. “That’s not our problem. Be glad.”

“What proof is there that he actually has Ariele? That there’s really such a drug?” Sparks said, not quite casually. “They’ll want more proof than this tape.”

“Have you seen Ariele around the city lately? Or Kullervo?”

“No,” he said, his mouth tightening.

“No one has. Jaakola’s taken them with him back to Ondinee, to give the concerned parties here sufficient time to realize that they have no alternatives. That there’s no way to save her except to do what he wants. When the time is right, he’ll bring her back.”

Sparks looked away, searching the crowd, willing himself to see a shock of silver hair, a poignantly familiar smile; to hear Ariele’s laughter, even her voice raised in anger, denying him as he had denied her… . But he found only random motion and meaningless noise: the face of chaos, in a crowd of strangers… .

“The sooner the message is delivered, the better,” Kirard Set said quietly. “For everyone’s sake.” He rose from his seat and started away without any farewell, disappearing into the crowd.

Sparks sat for a long moment staring at the empty tabletop. And then, unable to help himself, he took the tape button out of his belt pouch and dropped it into the player at the edge of the table. A three-dimensional image flickered to life in the air before him. He began to watch … went on watching, paralyzed by disbelief. At last he forced his hand to move, unable to tear his eyes away from the agonizing images even as his fist came down on the viewer’s touchboard, cutting off the flow of obscene horror.

“Excuse me, Sparks Dawntreader—”

He looked up, dazed, into the non-face of Tor’s hired servo unit.

“We do not permit public use of such visuals in the club,” it said tonelessly. “Please take a private room for future viewing, out of consideration for the club’s other patrons.”

He nodded wordlessly, unable even to respond to the droning solicitude of its speech.

“May I bring you something to calm your nerves, sir. A pack of iestas, a bowl of pickled fish?” Its twin vision sensors studied him with inhuman forbearance, like insect eyes.

“Bring me a drink. A strong one. Bring me six,” he said. It looked at him. “I’m expecting friends,” he added irritably.

The servo bobbed politely and moved away. It returned with six drinks in less time than he expected. He drank them all, in less time than he would have thought possible. They had no discernible effect on what was happening inside his head. He sat with the empty glasses in a line before him, as the tape replayed over and over in his memory; sure that he would never be able to see anything’clearly again, without that overlying vision.

The servo returned to his table after a time. He felt it regard the line of empty glasses, the empty seats around him, and himself, with silent speculation. “Your guests were detained, Sparks Dawntreader?”

“Bring me six more,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” it responded, and went away. He went on studying the six empties, rearranging them with his hands into one futile geometric configuration after another. I have no children. She’s not my daughter. He had actually said that, aloud, in front of strangers … he had actually believed that he meant it. He had turned away from his children, in their confusion and grief; turned his back on them because, knowing the truth, he suddenly could not bear to look at them….

He swore softly, as the obscene hallucination filling his mind surrendered to memories of his children … his children laughing, clinging to his legs, building castles out of sand; with sunlight in their hair, and hands filled with shells and colored stones: precious treasures. … He remembered them playing at games through the halls of the palace, bringing life and joy to that cold tomb where his own youth had died. He remembered their delight, their tears, their tantrums; the music of flutes, the crash of a shattered bowl—the eyes looking up into his own with unquestioning love, asking only that he love them without reservation.

Their lives, their youth, their hearts had been his. Gundhalinu might have planted the seed, but Gundhalinu had not watched them grow. They were his….

Visions of hideous death suffocated his memories suddenly: but this time it was Ariele he saw, suffering, dying, her flesh dropping from her bones before his horrified eyes….

“Sparks—”

He looked up again, startled, knocking over glasses. Tor Starhiker stood beside his table, with the Pollux unit behind her, staring down at him. “Thanks, Polly.” She sent it away and settled, uninvited, onto the seat across from him. She counted the disarray of empty glasses, and grimaced. “Pollux told me you were drinking the sea tonight,” she said, “and that’s not like you.” She glanced down, away from his sudden frown. “You want to drink some more, or would you like to talk about it?”

He opened his mouth; shook his head, glancing at the tape viewer.

“This have anything to do with the tape you were watching? That isn’t like you, either.” He looked back at her, and she shrugged. “Pollux sees all, Tor knows all. …” She touched his hand lightly, with unexpected concern. “Someone you knew?” she murmured.

“No,” he said; his hand made a fist. He cleared the congestion out of his throat “Tor … have you seen Ariele, the last week or so? Or Reede Kullervo?”

Her own hand closed suddenly. “Wait here,” she said, getting up. “I’ll be right back. You wait—” She pointed at him, her face urgent.

He waited. She returned with two men … Kullervo’s men, he realized; he remembered the striking contrast between them. He felt hope and relief sing through him, until he saw their faces. They slid into the booth across from him, the short man lifting himself onto the bench with the agility of long practice. Tor sat down with Sparks, but her hand reached across the table unexpectedly, to meet the short man’s blunt fingers in a brief, sensual twining. Sparks noticed that his face was a twilight landscape of cuts and bruises.

The other brand, the Ondinean, removed some kind of animal from his clothes and set it on the table in front of him, stroking its back. Watching his expression, Sparks wondered which of them, the man or the animal, was more in need of the reassurance. The creature made a strange chuckling noise, like gentle laughter, as the Ondinean’s fingers ruffled its fur.

“Niburu and Ananke.” Tor introduced the two men as if they were a unit. “They—”

“—work for Kullervo. I know,” Sparks murmured.

“This is Sparks Dawntreader Summer,” she said, to them.

“We know,” the short man answered, looking wary. Sparks realized he was better known to them for his dealings with the Source than he was for his relationship to the Queen.

“You need to talk,” Tor said. She leaned back and folded her arms.

“Where’s Kullervo?” Sparks asked flatly.

The two brands glanced at each other, uncertain.

“By the Lady and all the gods, Kedalion,” Tor urged impatiently, “tell him what you know.”

“Reede’s on Ondinee,” Niburu said, glancing down at his palm. “At least, that’s what 1 heard.”

“Then what are you doing still here?” Sparks said, frowning.

Niburu looked up again, his eyes bleak. “I don’t know… . TerFauw just ordered us back there.”

“Why did Kullervo leave without you? I thought you were his crew?”

“We are.” Niburu nodded. “I don’t know. Something happened … we went to meet him one morning, and he was gone from his place. He wasn’t anywhere. TerFauw beat the crap out of me before I could convince him we weren’t in on it.” He touched his jaw, wincing. “Nobody’d tell us anything, after that. And then today, TerFauw calls us in and tells us the Source took Reede back to Ondinee. We’re to follow. That’s all. I didn’t expect it; he was still working on his mer research. I figured …” He shook his head. “From the kind of questions TerFauw asked me, I think maybe Reede tried to run, and they got him back. But I can’t figure what could be bad enough to drive him to that. The Source treats him like shit, but Reede knows there’s no way out.” He pressed his branded palm flat on the tabletop, like he was squashing a bug.

“Do you know anything about… my daughter?” Sparks felt Tor turn to stare at him.

Niburu looked blank for a moment, and then sudden comprehension showed on his face. “Reede’s been—” He glanced at Sparks. “Uh, they spend a lot of time together.” He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her for … since Reede—” He broke off.

“I was told tonight…” Sparks took a deep breath, holding an empty glass in his hands, m fragile balance. “I was told to give a message to my wife, the Queen, from the Source. To say that… our daughter has been taken to Ondinee. That Reede Kullervo has addicted her to a drug he invented, something called the water of death. I was given a tape of what it does… what it will do to Ariele if my wife and the Chief Justice don’t give him something.…”

“Give him what?” Ananke asked.

“I don’t know!” he said, and the glass fell, clattering on the table. “Don’t you think I’d give it to him myself, if I knew?”

Ananke grimaced; his pet disappeared under his arm. He glanced at Niburu, and Sparks saw something unspoken pass between them. “You think that’s what he’s on?” Ananke asked. Niburu nodded, frowning.

“What is it—the ‘water of death’?” Tor asked. Her own face constricted as she waited for the answer, as if she were waiting for a blow.

“Kirard Set told me it was a bastard form of the water of life,” Sparks said

She shook her head slightly. “What does it do to you?”

He reached out and touched the tape player; the image materialized like a poisonous fog in the space between them. He watched, helplessly, hearing the others around him suck in their breath, hearing their curses of disbelief.

“Shut if off,” Tor said. “Shut it off, damn you!”

He reached out, extinguishing the image as she tried to reach past him and do it herself.

She hit him in the shoulder with her clenched fist; hit him again. “Damn it! Damn it!” He said nothing, did nothing, as she pulled back again, going limp against the dark, mirroring wall of the booth. She struck the tabletop once, with her open hand. Niburu and Ananke sat like stunned bookends, staring at each other.

Tor looked at him, finally, with apology in her eyes.”To Ariele—?” she whispered. “To Ariele?” Suddenly her eyes were empty

Sparks nodded, slumped in the corner. “Yes.”

“And Reede …” Niburu muttered.

“He gave it to her—” Tor said, her eyes coming alive again as she turned back to Niburu. “You bastard! You told me he was safe! You said he wouldn’t hurt her—”

“He wouldn’t—” Niburu began.

“Reede wouldn’t do something like that to her, he’s in love with her,” Ananke protested, running over the words.

Niburu put a hand on his arm. “He wouldn’t, if he was getting his fixes on time But we don’t how long he was missing. What would you do, to stop that—?” He gestured at the empty space between them, the air still haunted by what they had seen moments before.

Ananke looked away, shaking his head.

Niburu turned back to Sparks. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. He rested his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Tor. Gods, I never imagined something like this would happen….” He looked up again. “Shit—I don’t want to leave like this. I don’t want this to be why you remember me. …”

Her faced eased as she let go of her useless anger, “I know,” she said, and sighed. “Sparks, did you say Kirard Set told you about the water of death? What’s he got to do with it?”

“He has … business dealings with the Source.” Sparks shifted glasses into a new pattern. “And so do I.”

Tor stared at him, while her incredulity turned slowly to understanding, and then to resignation. She glanced at Niburu; back at him. “Kind of like a disease, isn’t it? … Gods, what are kind hearts like us doing in a cesspit like this?” She shook her head. “Is there anybody in the Motherloving galaxy who doesn’t work for the Source?”

“Moon,” Sparks said bitterly. “And Gundhalinu.”

“Not yet,” Niburu muttered.

“I know something else about Kirard Set,” Ananke said, leaning forward as his pet wandered across the table, snuffling in glasses. “You remember that night: Ariele, and Elco Teel—?” Niburu and Tor nodded, with sudden frowns. Tor pulled the animal back from the edge of the table, and began to scratch it behind the ears.

“What night?” Sparks said.

“Elco Teel slipped Ariele some kind of sex drug and took her to a—a—” Ananke broke off, looking down.

“A gang bang,” Niburu said bluntly, for him.

“Reede rescued her—” Tor put her hand on Sparks’s arm, holding him back until the words registered. “Reede. He risked getting himself killed to get her out of there in time. She was all right,” Tor insisted gently. “She was orbiting so high up, I don’t think she even remembered what happened. But they’ve been lovers, ever since.”

Sparks shook his head, feeling his images of Reede and his daughter and himself shift and flow like oil in water.

“Reede was like a pashayan—a flaming sword,” Ananke said, his eyes shining suddenly. “There were a dozen men, but he faced them down and they ran like rats. And then he made that little dungeater Elco Teel sweat blood. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when Reede took a knife to him—”

“Yeah, I’ve seen Reede like that,” Kedalion said, nodding. “A pashayan. That night in Ravien’s, when we met him …”

Ananke smiled, weaving a thin braid between his dark fingers. A peculiar expression came over his face, half fond and half chagrined. It faded, as his thoughts slid back into the present.

“What’s this got to do with Kirard Set?” Sparks said impatiently.

They looked back at him, almost resentful, as if he had interrupted a private reminiscence between mourners. But Ananke said, “Kirard Set gave Elco the drug that he gave to Ariele. And the Source gave it to Kirard Set. Reede said …”He pressed his forehead, half frowning as he tried to remember the words. “He said for Elco Teel to tell his father that it was a closed game, between him and the Source. That if they didn’t stay out of it, he’d kill them both.” He looked up again.

“You never told me that part of it,” Niburu said.

“I didn’t?” Ananke shrugged.

“Why in seven hells would Kirard Set want to do a thing like that?” Tor asked. “He was always mouthing it around that Elco Teel was going to marry Ariele someday, and she was going to be the next Summer Queen. I never liked him, the vicious motherfucker, he’s got a smile like a skule. But why—? Was he looking for favors from the Source? Or is he just that much of a human pustule?”

Sparks glanced at the tape player, and away again. “Yes,” he murmured. “All of that… but there’s more. It’s more complicated. The Source isn’t just a narco, he’s involved in dimensions of corruption you or I can’t even imagine….” He broke off, needing to say more; afraid to, for their sakes, for his own.

Something clattered onto the tabletop in front of him. He picked it up—a chain, dangling two ornaments. He held them closer, seeing a ring with two soliis set into a band of white metal. A pendant clinked silverly against the ring; its form caught in his brain like a fishhook. The Brotherhood. He looked up again; met Niburu’s gaze waiting for him. “Is this yours?” he asked.

“It was Reede’s,” Niburu answered. “He always wore it, always. But I found it in his room, after he disappeared. Reede used to call it his good luck charm. …” He glanced away. “He lost it once before, a long time ago. When I went to give it back to him, he was in a meeting with about a dozen people who would’ve gutted each other if they’d met out on the street. They would have gutted me, but Reede stopped them. He said get out, and forget I ever saw them… . It’s some kind of secret society, isn’t it? Something bigger and more powerful than any cartel. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“Close enough.” Sparks’s hand closed over the metal and jewels, feeling their coldness bite his flesh. “They’re behind everything that’s happening here, I’m sure of it. And only somebody with the same kind of resources and power has even a hope of getting Ariele back from him. Gundhalinu’s got that kind of power. That must be why the Source took her off world.” He rubbed his head, his fingers tangled in his hair. “That means he’s not completely confident, at least.”

“If she’s in the Source’s citadel, nobody can get her out alive,” Niburu said flatly.

Sparks looked up at him. “Did you say TerFauw ordered you back to Ondinee?”

Niburu nodded, looking uneasy.

“You’re being sent back to join Reede, at the citadel?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Take me with you.”

Niburu shook his head. “No way. That’s impossible. We can’t smuggle you in.” “If I have this, it’s possible.” Sparks held up the pendant, let it dangle in the air before them.

“You don’t have this.” Niburu held his hand up, palm out, showing Sparks the same brand that Kullervo wore. “Even that pendant won’t protect you. It didn’t protect Reede. Nobody much looks at brands, as long as they’ve got the Source’s mark on them. But you haven’t got it.”

Sparks studied the eye-shaped scar, imprinting it on his memory. “I can take care of that,” he said.

Niburu grimaced, and was silent for a long moment. “No,” he said finally. The fingers of his hand closed over the eye in his palm. “I’m sorry. I can’t. The rule I live by is ‘Keep your head down, and hope the Dark Ones overlook you.’”

“The Dark Ones have already noticed you,” Sparks said. He gestured at Niburu’s battered face. “Do you like being the Source’s property?”

Niburu frowned, glancing at his partner. “No,” he muttered. “But I like it better than being a corpse. I think I speak for both of us.” Ananke nodded, unsmiling.

“What about Reede?”

“What about him?”

“I’ve seen how the Source treats him. Do you care anything about what happens to him?” Sparks asked, remembering what he’d seen pass between them, when he showed them what the water of death could do.

The moment stretched like an impossibly sustained note, before Niburu said roughly, “Yeah. I guess we do,” and Ananke nodded again. “I guess it matters a lot. …” Niburu looked surprised.

Sparks took a deep breath. “When the Source gets what he wants—or even if he doesn’t—he’ll probably kill them both.”

“He won’t kill Reede,” Niburu protested. “Reede’s too valuable.”

“Maybe,” Sparks said, with relentless logic. “Maybe you’ll all live to a ripe old age, and you’ll spend the rest of your lives in slavery, watching the Source break your friend’s spirit and destroy his soul. Or maybe not— If the Source decides to kill Reede, what do you think he’ll want to do with both of you?”

They looked at him.

“Reede wants out of there, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah.…” Niburu nodded. “We all do. But it’s like you said: the Source is too powerful.”

“They’ll be expecting Gundhalinu to try something. They won’t be expecting this. If Reede loves my daughter the way you say he does, I think he’ll help us once we’re in, even if he wouldn’t try it on his own.”

Niburu rubbed his face. “By the Holy Hands,” he said. “You know you’d be committing suicide—? And you’re asking me to do it too.”

“It’s my daughter,” he said. “And it’s your choice.”

Niburu and Ananke put their heads together, muttering, while Tor stroked the Ondmean’s pet, staring at the tabletop. Life went on, entirely meaningless, in the room beyond her half-frowning profile. “Sparks,” Tor said, glancing at him suddenly, “even if you get them out and survive, what’ll you do then?”

“Bring them back here.”

“But they weren’t safe here, in the first place—” She broke off.

“They will be if Gundhalinu has enough warning. Will you go to him—go to Moon? Give them the message Kirard Set gave me … tell them everything you know about him, while you’re at it,” Sparks said sourly. “Then tell them the rest of it: where I’ve gone. Tell him they have to be ready to protect us all, when we get back. Gundhalinu will understand what he has to do. Give him this—” He handed her Reede’s pendant.

“And the tape?” she murmured, taking the pendant.

He looked down. “Use your judgment,” he said finally. “She’s their daughter too.”

“What?” She stared at him; he watched her disbelief fade. “Oh,” she said.

He looked back at Niburu and Ananke.

“What about the water of death?” Niburu said. “What about when it runs out?”

“We’ll get a sample. We’ll make more. There must be a way to keep them alive until we can; we’ll find it. If we can get in and get them out, we’ll have all the backup we need to stay free, and stay alive. Are you willing to try it?”

They glanced at each other again. At last Niburu nodded, and then Ananke did. “We’ll take you to Ondinee,” Niburu said. “After that …”He shrugged. “We’ll see. We leave tomorrow.” He glanced at Tor, with sudden melancholy coming into his eyes. He sighed.

Sparks nodded. “I’ll be waiting, wherever and whenever you say.”

“Tor?” Ananke said hesitantly. Tor looked away from Niburu, facing him. “Keep the quoll for me, will you … until we come back,” he added, selfconsciously. “You know what they like….” He began to take off the sling he wore over his shoulder.

Tor studied him. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Sure. I’ll take good care of it for you… until you get back. Until you all get back.” She looked at Niburu again, with a smile that held nothing but sorrow. She gathered the quoll up in her arms, the pendant still clutched in her fist. She slipped out of the booth and left them, without another word.