Reede swore, pushing to his feet. Dizziness made him lean on the table; he sank into his seat again. Wayaways’ eyes were on him like a voyeur’s. Reede shook his head, in disbelief more than denial. “Why…?” he said, uncomprehendingly.
“Because it will bind her to us. It will give me power over her… and over her mother.”
He shook his head again. “What’s the point? Drop a dose of something in the Queen’s soup, if you want her to cooperate. Why bother with this game—”
“Because it’s my game, and you are my pawn,” the darkness said. “And I want you to make her fall in love with you. That is your penance; for lying to me, for failing to make meaningful progress in your research on the mers because of your infatuation with this girl.”
Reede felt nausea rise like a living thing inside him, barely able to control it. “I’m working on it, you bastard! I’ll get the blood sample—I’ll kill the fucking mer with my bare hands if that’s what you want. I’ll give you what you want. But not her. It’s not going to happen. Not with me.”
“I thought she didn’t matter to you.”
“She doesn’t—”
“—Or is it Mundilfoere?”
Reede jerked with impotent fury. Wayaways flinched back as he rose to his feet again. He started away from the table, heading blindly for the lift, although he knew that he was a prisoner, that it would not even answer his call unless the Source ordered it to.
“Reede.” Something in the Source’s voice stopped him dead. “I have what you need “
He turned back slowly, willing his eyes to see what they saw waiting for him on the table. He flung himself across the room, catching up the vial before it could disappear, and emptied it into his mouth.
His throat closed suddenly, as he would have swallowed—as his lips, his tongue, registered something wrong. He spat; a mouthful of warm blood crimsoned the front of his clothes, his hands, the tabletop, like gaudy vomit. “Shit!” he gasped. “Shit—!” Droplets of red splattered on Wayaways as he shook his dripping hands. Wayaways swore in furious disgust.
“Whose was it?” he shouted at the darkness. “Whose? Whose?” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, leaving a smear of red. He spat again.
“Mer blood,” the Source said. “What you need to continue your research … as I said. Since you failed to get it yourself, I have obtained it for you, with the cooperation of Wayaways here. You’ll find the rest of the sample waiting for you in the labs I want you to go there now and do your work.”
Reede looked down at his trembling, bloodied hands, at the empty vial lying on the tabletop. “I can’t. I can’t work when I’m like this! I need—”
“I know what you need,” the Source said softly. “You’ll find that too, waiting for you…. Now go.”
Reede wiped his hands on his shut, swallowing bile. He glanced at Wayaways as he raised his head again. The Tiamatan was staring back at him with morbid fascination. Reede leaned forward suddenly, and hit Wayaways a blinding slap across the face with his open palm. He pushed back again and went on across the room toward the lift. This time its doors opened to him, and took him inside.
Kirard Set Wayaways rubbed his face, frozen somewhere between outrage and disbelief as he watched Kullervo step into the lift and disappear from sight. Finally he looked toward the formless blackness that claimed to be the Source, realizing that he was suddenly quite alone with it. He had never been alone in the Source’s presence before, and remembering what he had just seen, he was not sure whether to be flattered or unnerved by this unexpected audience.
“Wayaways…”the Source’s ruined voice said.
Kirard Set attempted to hold an expression of calm anticipation on his face.
“…you show great potential. I commend your work so far. You seem to accomplish your goals with alacrity. I expect you will continue to rise within the Brotherhood, and enjoy its rewards.”
Kirard Set smiled in acknowledgment; but his hand rubbed his still-smarting face.
“Don’t take Kullervo’s insufferable behavior to heart,” the Source murmured. “He has a lot on his mind. And he will have more, before long. Perhaps you would like to help me see that he does. I want his relationship with Ariele Dawntreader consummated. It won’t happen if I leave it to him. He belongs to me … but he still likes to pretend he has some choice in the matter.” He made an amused sound. “This star-crossed romance will need additional effort. You can help me see that it takes place.” Kirard Set nodded, more eagerly this time, with his hand still pressing his cheek.
“This is what I want you to do.…”
TIAMAT: Carbuncle
Moon arrived at Fate Ravenglass’s doorstep with Clavally Bluestone, and knocked on the closed upper half of the door. She heard footsteps approaching and a familiar voice, heard a cat squawk as it inadvertently got underfoot. The upper door swung open, and Fate’s unseeing eyes looked out at them. She smiled as if she could actually see their faces, because she had been expecting them.
“Come in, come in—” She opened the lower half of the door as they spoke their own greetings, and two spotted cats were suddenly under their feet as they stepped inside. Fate’s old gray torn had finally died, some years back, and Tor had supplied her with not one, but two replacements, when the restaurant’s cat had kittens. “What’s this? You’ve brought lunch?” She sniffed pointedly. “Does this mean you’re for more than simply to discuss College business, then?”
“Well, we all have to eat, and why not gossip a little over lunch, then?” Clavally said cheerfully. She set the covered basket down on the table in the front room, which been a workshop in the days when Fate had been a maskmaker. Now that the College had moved up the long spiraling hill to the palace and the city had begun to fill up with foreigners, Fate got out less and less, and they both knew it. With the years slowing her body and making her less sure on her feet, the accumulation of difficulties had been gradually conspiring to make her housebound.
“Well then, tell me what’s new?” Fate found her way to a seat, moving confidently within the confines of her home. She gestured to them to sit down. “Have either of you been to Tor’s club yet? I hear that it’s thriving. I’m very happy for her, I know it’s what she was meant to do. Although I virtually never see her anymore, and that’s a shame.” Moon heard the vast loneliness and regret inside the resolutely positive words.
“No,” Moon answered, hearing Clavally’s “No” echo her own. They glanced at each other, smiling ruefully. “Too busy,” she said.
“Too much noise,” Clavally said. She opened the basket, passing around meat pies. “It’s for the offworlders, who don’t know what silence means, and for the young ones, who don’t want to know.”
“For shame,” Fate said, clucking, as she accepted a pastry, its wrapper covered with unintelligible offworlder script. She breathed in the smell of the food, took a tentative bite, and sighed, nodding approval. “Well, this is not bad, you know… . You should go to the club. Make the time! You’re young yet, you should enjoy yourself. Try something new. I’d like to hear about it.”
“I’ll send Ariele to give you a complete description,” Moon murmured. “If she ever speaks to me again. She lives there, or would, if Tor would let her.”
“Oh, now,” Clavally said. “It isn’t that bad. She’s still out at the plantation with the mers as much as she is down in the Maze with Elco Teel and that lot. She’ll stablize. All the young ones are gorging themselves on the offworlders’ sweetmeats, because they’ve never had anything like it. Eventually they’ll grow tried of it.”
“How, when there’s something new every week—? They’re lost at sea, with nothing to navigate by, and no anchor.” Moon heard her own voice sharpen; knew that it wasn’t the temptations of the Maze, but Ariele’s response to them that galled her. “At least your Merovy has a sense of purpose; the future isn’t an infinite present to her.”