And in the echoing golden/blackness where nothing existed beyond the sea of their shared sensation, as all physical boundaries dissolved in the fluid heat of desire, she dreamed that she swam like the mers, the Sea’s Children… that she felt the sensuous caress of the Sea against their silken, brindle bodies, the slow fire of their passion, of their motion through the heart of the secret machinery of the sibyl mind, which lay hidden far below the place where she lay entwined with her lover; below Carbuncle, the ancient City in the North, a pin pushed into a map of time.… She heard the mers singing, a rippling golden vision, how their songs brought healing and order to that secret, vulnerable, vital organ entrusted to their keeping. She saw at last why the message of the mersong had been impossible to grasp…. The truths that had never been revealed to anyone since its creators… until now.
Caught inside an exaltation that swept her beyond thought, beyond the boundaries of time, she was terrifyingly free. There was nothing hidden from her view, and nothing that was not his to share, inside her body, inside her mind, inside that rippling sea of lightmusic where their union was complete….
And as he realized the truth, his epiphany became ecstasy, and set him free. The energy of his release cascaded back through the matrix of her body, shockwaves of light resonating through every nerve, the feel of him inside her, his lips against her throat, his inarticulate cry, her incoherent sob of joy She held him, held him, until she was sure once more of the location of every atom of his body and her own; and that she was no longer made of fluid light.
It was a long time before she was able to speak again, a long time before he even tried, before there was any need for the superfluity of sound, when their lips, their tongues, were still preoccupied with more important tasks, while they had no breath to waste, while they still clung to one another through the slowing spiral of their return to earth.
“I understand….” he said, at last, with an awe and wonder that seemed to fill his whole being. And his face changed, filling with anguish and dread as he realized what it was he knew—why she would do anything to stop the Hunt; why she had never told him the whole truth… why he would never be able to tell anyone else.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered, holding her. But she did not answer him, her own face stricken as she saw his eyes. Her arms tightened around him. “No,” she murmured, “it will be terrible.”
She felt him look back at her, felt the gentle touch of his hand against her face. But he did not deny it.
Sparks climbed the stairs from the silent, empty ballroom, still seeing in his mind the telltale detritus of the Mask Night: countless masks with their empty, patient eyes, gazing at him from doorways or steps; waiting for the dawn while their owners made merry within, all along the littered empty streets. He had worn a mask tonight, the one given to him by Fate Ravenglass, all reds and golds, glittering like the sun, as vital, as angry as fire. … He had spent the early part of the night talking with his father, and the rest of it wandering from party to party; but he had felt as lifeless and hollow-souled as his mask, once he and his father had said their goodbyes.
He had not gone for the night, or even for an hour, with anyone, although he had had sufficient opportunities; because he was certain that Moon was spending her night alone, faithful to the word, if not the spirit, of their long-ago vow. He had broken both the word and the spirit of their pledge, many times, since the offworlders’ return, although he had sworn at their departure that he would never do it again.
But tonight he had talked with his father about memories of family and home; he had shared the loneliness and regret of a man who had had neither, for far too long. His father had told him that he planned to leave the Assembly when it next visited his homeworld; that being here, at Tiamat’s time of Change, had made him realize how disillusioned he had grown with an existence that seemed ever more pointless.
Carrying his father’s words, his father’s sorrow, with him as he wandered the streets, he had come to realize at last that this was a time of Change for him as well, even if it was in name only; that there was still time before dawn for him to lie with the only woman he had ever truly loved, and promise her a new beginning.
He walked quietly down the hall to the bedroom he and his wife had always shared, until these last few months. He stopped, standing motionless before the closed door. Two masks lay side by side against the wall, in mute testimony to the absurdity of dreams. He stared at them for a long time. And then he turned away, and went slowly back down the hall.
TIAMAT: Carbuncle
BZ Gundhalinu took his place on the ribbon-draped platform between Vhanu and the Prime Minister, aware that all eyes were on him now—the last one sliding into place, like a guilty schoolboy, when he should have been the first one here. Below the hastily erected viewing stands the sea waited, covered by floating docks; the docks were now so crowded with the ships of Festival-time that the water itself was barely visible.
But where the pier ended below him a space of water had been deliberately left open, for the ritual to come. He watched its dark, glimmering motion, feeling its relentness rhythms begin to hypnotize him. His mind sank like a stone, drawn down into the depths by the weight of his new knowledge, the unspeakable burden of the secret that lay hidden below….
He forced his eyes away, clutching the rail in front of him harder than necessary as he searched the clear space that separated the stands filled with influential offworlders from the stands which held the most influential Tiamatans—segregated, as they had always been. All the faces that he could see across the way were still hidden behind their Mask Night disguises, unlike his own people; the Tiamatans would not unmask until the ritual was completed. Two real human faces stood out against the sea of alien forms—Sparks Dawntreader and the Queen, standing side by side. They were not touching, and their own faces were as fixed and rigid as masks.
He willed Moon to lift her gaze from the sea to look at him; until at last she met his eyes. He saw her translucently pale skin blush; saw the telltale redness of her mouth, the dizzying depths of passion and hidden knowledge in her eyes. His hand rose unthinkingly to his own lips, his own unmasked face; fell away again. His whole body still moved as if he were sleepwalking, stupefied by revelations at every level of awareness, revelations that still went on and on.…
“BZ—” Vhanu’s hand was on his arm, giving him a subtle shake; he realized that Vhanu had been trying to get his attention, and failing. “Thou must have had quite a night of it,” Vhanu whispered, with amusement in his eyes. “I’ve never seen thou like this before.”
“Yes,” he murmured, understating
“I had a most entertaining night myself,” Vhanu said, his smile turning private with the memory. “Really quite an interesting custom.”
“Yes, indeed,” Sandrine muttered, behind them. “But barbaric that they make us get up at dawn the morning after, to stand here in this wind and watch them throw straw dummies into the sea.” The others around him had already taken off their masks, as if it was beneath their dignity to be seen wearing one in their official capacity, in the light of day. He had left his own mask behind at the palace, forgotten in the bedazzlement of his waking, their leavetaking, his frantic dash back to his townhouse to change into his uniform in time for the Change ceremony.