The Summer Queen

TIAMAT: Carbuncle

Jerusha PalaThion stood on the deck of the ship that had once been her husband’s, trying to adjust to the unfamiliar roll of its deck, which she had once been so accustomed to. Around her were all the ships her plantation—which had also once been his—could spare, and dozens of other craft, both Winter and Summer, bobbing on the gray ocean surface beneath the sullen gray sky. They covered the water for as far as she could see, ringing Carbuncle. Tiamat’s people had come, at the request of their Queen, to witness the miracle of the mers’ gathering … and, not coincidentally, to impede the offworlders’ attacks on them.

Because the mers were here as well, making the sea boil with their restless motion, like an impatient crowd gathered at a gate—but gathered for what purpose she could not imagine; no one here could. She felt the thrumming vibration of mersong in the water all around her, carried up through the very timbers of the ship and into her feet as she stood on its deck.

She wondered what Miroe would have made of this, whether he would have had some insight she lacked. He had been in her thoughts constantly, since she had turned her back again on the betraying Hegemony, and become once more wholly Tiamatan. His memory was with her now, here—in every breath of sea air, in the motion of the deck beneath her feet, the sound of Tiamatan voices calling and speaking around her.

She had barely let herself think of him in all the time she had served as Gundhalinu’s Chief Inspector, keeping herself endlessly busy with the details of her work. She felt his absence from her life so profoundly that to remember his presence in it had been unbearable. She had walled herself off from her grief, she realized now; shut away her personal needs behind a barrier of official business, as she had done all her life before she met him.

To be here today in the middle of this strange sea was a kind of catharsis, giving her emotions an outward focus, and a meaningful goal. He should have been here today, she thought. And, thinking it, she knew that he was; because she had become the keeper of all that he had believed in, not just under the law but in her soul.

She looked down over the catamaran’s rail, checking again on the position of Silky, who had been ranging farther and farther from their position in the water, disappearing but always returning just as she began to grow concerned. Silky blew spray, sneezing noisily in the ship’s shadow just below her, and submerged again as she watched. It reassured her to see the merling in the flesh, even though she could track Silky’s location any time with the ship’s instruments, from the sonic tag the young mer wore.

She had had dreams—nightmares—of the Hunt every night for weeks, even though she had had plantation hands following the colony’s course by boat ever since she had learned that the mers were traveling north; trying in the only way she knew to protect her adopted child from Vhanu’s hunters. So far she had been successful.

But now the mers had gathered here at Carbuncle, just as BZ had predicted. She had no way of knowing how long they would choose to remain here, any more than she could say why they did it, or how long Moon would be able to maintain this level of support from her people. The offworlder’s threats and restrictions had only made the Tiamatans more stubborn; but soon the real pressure would come from the need of people to get on with their work and their daily lives.

The comm bug in her ear came alive suddenly, and a voice said, “Commander, this is Fairhaven. Commander Vainoo is coming your way, in a hovercraft; just so you know.”

“Thanks, Fairhaven,” she murmured, with an involuntary chuckle. The common local mispronounciation of Vhanu’s name had rapidly become the only one, since he had declared martial law. She shrugged at the curious stare of one of her deckhands. “Prepare to repel boarders,” she said.

“Commander?” The woman’s expression grew even more uncomprehending.

“A joke.” Jerusha shook her head, looking out across the sea. She watched mers ripple the water surface off to starboard; saw them submerge, as a hovercraft passed over their heads, just above wave height, heading directly for her ship.

She stood where she was, leaning against the rail, feeling a fine mist that was part cloud, part sea, clinging to her face as she waited for Vhanu to come. The hovercraft slowed, settling with uncanny precision until its door was directly beside her. The bug in her ear came alive again, on the Police frequency this time. “Permission to come aboard, Commander PalaThion?”

“Granted,” she said. She smiled, with an irony she knew would not be missed by the watchers behind the mirrored windshield that loomed like a predator’s eye above her.

The door rose and Vhanu climbed out, landing awkwardly on the pitching surface of the deck. The hovercraft remained protectively beside him as he saluted her, punctiliously correct, as always. “Commander PalaThion.” She heard in his voice how it annoyed him to have to address her by a rank equal to his own, when in his mind she was no more than the head of a local constabulary.

“What can I do for you, Commander Vhanu?” she said, not returning his salute; refusing to participate in his charade of Technician propriety.

He frowned. “You can tell me what you’re doing here, in the middle of this unlawful assembly, to begin with,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. “To begin with, this is not an unlawful assembly. Your restrictions only specified gatherings of more than ten people within the city. It said nothing about boats on the open sea. As for my part, professionally I’m ensuring that order is maintained, while at the same time, as a private citizen, I’m observing the Lady’s miracle, like everyone else.”

“You don’t believe that rubbish,” he said flatly.

She stared at him. “What I believe, or don’t believe, is no business of yours.”

His frown deepened; she saw him searching for a trace of sarcasm in her voice, a hint of it in her eyes. She showed him nothing. “You and the Queen have strained my patience long enough with this harassment,” he said, his own eyes turning cold. “The Police are beginning a sweep even as we speak. I have ordered my people to arrest everyone who refuses to disperse and remain outside of a five-kilometer radius of the city, and to sink their ships. That includes you, PalaThion, if you remain here.”

“More people will take their places,” Jerusha said.

His mouth twisted. “Then we’ll go on arresting them. You can’t keep it up for long. This miserable world doesn’t have enough population.” He hesitated, as her expression did not change. “And what population it has is extremely centralized,” he said slowly. “These ignorant technophobes have no idea what kind of position that puts them in strategically. But I don’t have to tell you what we could do to you, if you give us any real trouble. I’ve been lenient so far. You know that—”

“Commander Vhanu! Sir—” The voice of the hovercraft’s pilot came over her own comm link, even as she saw Vhanu react. “Carbuncle has just lost all power.”

“What?” Vhanu said.

“Everything has gone down there, sir. It’s like someone threw the master switch. They have no lights, no power—nothing.”

Vhanu swore, looking toward the city, his face suddenly naked. Jerusha had never seen him show an emotion as spontaneous as the disbelief, and then the fear, that filled his eyes. The fear frightened her more than any threat. “Take me back to the city,” he muttered, into his own link. He turned away as if he had forgotten that she existed, and climbed into the hovercraft.

Jerusha watched the craft rise, bank sharply, and soar away toward Carbuncle. The city looked unchanged to her, from where she stood, in broad daylight. But that was the thing about Carbuncle—it held its secrets well. She wondered what would happen when night came … wondered if Moon had done this, somehow. She was certain that was what Vhanu must be thinking. Her hands tightened on the rail as she remembered the look in his eyes.

She called on her link, alerting the constables who were out on the sea with the locals, ordering them back to the city. She tried to raise her headquarters in Carbuncle, getting only static; her skin prickled suddenly, as if the sound had invaded her very flesh.

She glanced down over the rail again, searching the water beside her for Silky The mers nearby had scattered as the hovercraft came down; some of them were returning to fill that gray, restless space now, although suddenly the entire surface of the sea seemed to have grown almost empty of them. “Atwater,” she called, glancing into the ship’s cabin. “Get me a reading on Silky, will you?” She waited, her hands tapping a silent rhythm on the rail as the time stretched and still she got no answer. “Atwater—?” she demanded.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Atwater said, at last. “I can’t trace her beacon. It’s gone.”

Hegemonic Police Commander NR Vhanu was met at the gates of the Summer Queen’s palace by an escort of two city constables, carrying lanterns. They studied him and his escort with guarded expressions, saying only, “Come with us, sir,” as they led the way back through the heavy doors. He felt their hostility like a wave of heat as soon as they turned their backs on him.

He followed them along the hallway, catching fleeting glimpses of the primitive murals that defaced its walls; struck more profoundly by the complete darkness that surrounded him. He had never even thought about what an immense, dark tomb this city was, without the artificial light and life support that the Old Empire’s technology had given it. The storm walls at the end of every alley had opened, as if in some strange, programmed ritual, letting in the chill breath of the open air, so that Carbuncle did not become uninhabitable when its systems failed—only massively inconvenient. As if someone had planned it that way.

They reached the Hall of the Winds. It was brighter here, because there were windows to let in the bleak silver light of day—although, he realized with some surprise, these windows had remained closed. He remembered suddenly being told how once only these windows remained perpetually open, so that the winds interacted with the sail-like curtains high above, making what was now simply a rather nerve-wracking passage over the city’s open access well into a trial by air.

According to the story, the Summer Queen had caused the windows to close, controlling the city’s arcane, self-perpetuating machinery in a way that no one seemed to understand. … He crossed the bridge almost without being aware that he did, for once; looking up, studying the sealed windows, and wondering.

They climbed the wide stairway on the other side, and entered what was still called the throne room, although its once-elegant decor had been usurped by rude examples of Tiamatan arts and crafts until it looked to his eye more like a village marketplace. He was always secretly surprised that he did not find live animals wandering among the visitors there.

Today, in the unexpected darkness, he felt as if he were entering a cave. It had never struck him before that this room had no natural light source. The Queen was waiting for him, sitting on the crystal throne which was the only surviving relic of Winter’s reign. He had wondered before why she had not had that single striking piece of furniture replaced with some crude native-made chair. Perhaps even she had been awed by the exquisite workmanship of its gleaming convolutions. It seemed almost beyond human design; as if it were a creation spun from ice by the forces of wind and sun.

And now, led by lamplight as he entered the shadow-hung chamber, he saw the throne illuminated by candles and oil lanterns. In the flickering light, it shone as if it held a fire of its own: the patterns of reflection flowing along its undulant surfaces reminded him of the aurora that filled the night sky of his homework). The play of light and shadow gave the anemic paleness of the Queen’s face, the whiteness of her hair, a strange, almost unearthly luminosity that his startled eyes persisted in finding sensuous. The Queen’s eyes were no color that he had ever seen before, no color that he could put a name to; they watched his approach with smoldering hostility.

He felt a moment of vertiginous uncertainty as he stopped before the throne; as he found her beautiful in spite of himself, and remembered the silent air in the Hall of Winds. What was it that Gundhalinu had been unable to resist about her, that had transformed a friend into a stranger, a hero into a traitor? For a moment, remembering Gundhalinu and seeing her before him, shining like aurora-glow, he wanted to find out for himself what it was about her, what it was she had made Gundhalinu feel; how it would feel to possess her, to be possessed by such an obsession… .

His sudden guilt and shame suffocated the images filling his mind. He drew himself up, making a perfectly controlled bow. “Lady,” he said, his voice flat.

She nodded, a barely visible acknowledgment in return. “Commander Vhanu. What is it you want now?”

“Two things,” he said harshly. “I want you to order your citizens to clear the waters around Carbuncle. And I want the city’s power restored.”

She raised her eyebrows; her expression was surprised to the point of mockery, but he saw her hands tighten over the arms of the throne, her fingers searching its convolutions. “What makes you think that I can control either of those situations, Commander?” she said softly.

He took a deep breath. “You are the leader of this world’s people, or so you claim. You ordered them out there.”

“I am ‘technically only a religious leader, with no real authority to rule,’ I believe you said, to justify yourself when you declared martial law. I spread the word among my people about the gathering of the mers, because it is a religious matter to them. They chose to make pilgrimages, to witness for themselves this marvel of the Lady’s blessing. How do you expect me to order them not to do that?”

He saw in her eyes that she did not believe anything she said, any more than he did. He had always taken her for a religious fanatic; it shocked him to realize suddenly that she was an exquisite hypocrite, mouthing religious platitudes about the Lady as an excuse to exercise secular powers to which she had no legal claim. He swore under his breath as the once solid ground beneath his convictions crumbled further. “Then you leave me no choice but to control your people for you, Lady,” he said.

But it was an empty threat. He had had to pull the force back from their task of arresting the protestors to maintain order in the paralyzed city. And there were disturbing reports that the mers were suddenly disappearing from the seas around Carbuncle.

If this went on too long, he would lose his opportunity to show the tribunal the kind of productivity and control he had been so sure he could demonstrate to them. If he could not find out how to get the city’s power functioning again, he would lose everything.

He was a rational man, not a man who liked to take risks. He had gambled on what seemed to be a sure thing; he had put his judgment, his political prowess, his honor, on the line to secure the water of life. If he failed, he would have sacrificed Gundhalinu’s trust and friendship, Gundhalinu’s distinguished career, his own career—all for nothing. All of them would be brought to ruin by this damnable enigma of a world, and its elusive, seductive Queen.

“I suppose you will tell me next that you had nothing to do with what’s happened to the city?” He gestured at the shadows around them.

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said, shaking back her long, silver-lit hair.

“They say you stopped the winds, in the Hall down below. You know things about this place that no one else does—” he thought she stiffened imperceptibly, “and how to control them.”

“I control nothing about Carbuncle,” she murmured. “Any more than you do.”

He felt his chest constrict, as her blind dart struck too close to home. “I may not control the power source for Carbuncle,” he said, “but I control far greater powers, as you know. We have weapons capable of destroying this city completely—there would be nothing left of it, do you understand me?” He thrust the words at her. “No structure, not even wreckage, no human beings left alive. A crater, filled with the sea.”

Her face flushed. “You don’t have the authority. You wouldn’t dare do such a thing. Why would you—?”

“Perhaps because you left me no alternative. Perhaps simply because I could.” His anger fed on her sudden reaction like fire on air. “But if it happens, your last thought will be that you could have prevented it from happening … that you drove me to it—” He forced his voice back under control. “A tribunal committee from Kharemough is coming here to investigate the situation that led to my removing the Chief Justice from office. There will be an inquiry, and it will involve your part in his dishonor—”

“There was no dishonor—” she began.

“—And if things continue here unchanged from how they now stand, the tribunal committee will undoubtedly back any measures I am forced to take against your people.”

The Queen was silent for a long moment, looking back at him with her changeable eyes. “It strikes me, Commander Vhanu,” she said at last, “that we have more in common than simply our roles in bringing a good man to undeserved grief. Gundhalinu is gone because you and I both possess a certain amount of power, which comes to us from some greater source; and we both try to use it to further ends we believe in. Whether we succeed is not always our choice. But it remains our choice how we go about it. I was taught, when I became a sibyl, that my duty was to serve all who needed the power that passed through me; not to use it to serve my own selfish ends. … I am simply a conduit, Commander, which is why I cannot give you what you want. I am a vessel. And you are a hollow man.” She rose from the throne in a motion as fluid as water, and stepped down off the dais into the protective gathering of her advisors and lightbearers, who had waited for her as silently as shadows. She started away toward the far door, leaving him behind without acknowledgment.

But she stopped at the door, turned back to look at him. “Anything you do to this world or any of its people will come back to you threefold in misery,” she said. The stagnant, lifeless air of the throne room gave an unnerving quality to her voice, as if something else were speaking through her. Only a vessel … She turned away, and did not look back again before she disappeared.

He turned, frowning, and pushed a path through the silent stares of his own retinue. He started back the way he had come, forcing the lantern-bearing constables to hurry after him through the unchanged darkness.