TIAMAT: Carbuncle
BZ Gundhalinu paced restlessly in the quiet confines of his townhouse sitting room, unable to remain sitting any longer. The music he had called on did not suit his mood, and no amount of attempted meditation seemed to have the slightest effect on his heartbeat or his impatience.
Gods… he thought, feeling the hot ache spreading, deep inside him, as he pushed aside the heavy drapes to look out the window once more. I’m too old to feel like this. Like a lovesick boy, like a character out of the Old Empire romances he had read in his youth. He had never felt this way then; never believed that anyone actually did, that anyone actually counted seconds that seemed hours long, waiting for a knock at the door, the first glimpse of his lover’s face as she arrived in the night for a secret tryst….
There was a knock at his door, barely audible. He stepped into the hallway, and the security system’s monitor showed him the face he had been waiting to see. He deactivated the system and went to the door, lightfooted; opened it.
She stood there, dressed in the heavy, shapeless clothing of a Summer worker, her hair hidden beneath a scarf, carrying a delivery basket. He stood aside to let her come in, and closed the door behind her—barely in time, as she dropped the basket at her feet and put her arms around him. He laughed in startled pleasure to find she was as eager for this moment as he was. He kissed her long and deeply. “Gods help me,” he murmured, “you were all I could think about, all day.” They had managed to meet this way a dozen times in the months since Mask Night; but still every time seemed like the first time, because the stolen hours they had together were never enough, would never be enough, until they could spend every night together, freely. And he knew that would never happen.
He loosened her shirt, sliding his hands up beneath it, feeling the silken curves of her breasts, the heat that radiated from that contact, suddenly filling her, filling him. Still kissing her, he pressed her back against the wall, feeling the urgent pressure straining against his pants, the sweet yearning of her body arched against his as she unfastened his uniform shirt and began to stroke his skin. “Mother of Us All,” she breathed, against his neck, “I love you. …”
“Moon—” He broke off, as another knock sounded at his door. Moon let go of him, her eyes startled.
“Justice Gundhalinu!” a voice called, muffled but clearly audible beyond the door.
“Capella Goodventure,” Moon said, her surprise deepening.
“Justice Gundhalinu!” The Goodventure elder’s voice reached them again, louder and more demanding. “I know you’re in there.”
“There was another hunt today,” Moon said, her expression turning distant and gray. “Wasn’t there? She’s come about the mers.”
“Yes.” He looked down, away from the grief in her eyes, toward the door
“I think you should speak to her.”
He nodded, resigned, the burning need inside him suddenly gone to ashes. He refastened his shirt; went to the door and opened it, revealing Capella Goodventure’s startled, angry face. Her disbelief at seeing him face to face would have been laughable, under other circumstances. “Come in,” he said wearily, standing aside.
She pushed her way past him, as if he had tried to bar her way; stopped dead, as she discovered Moon Dawntreader waiting in the hall behind him. The Goodventure elder stared at the Summer Queen, at her clothing; turned back to look at him, at his own disheveled clothes. “You—?” she said softly, shaking her head.
Capella Goodventure hugged her arms against her chest, beneath the loose folds of her cloak, as she moved toward Moon. “I thought I would find him dallying with some foolish, empty-headed market girl. But you, and him— This is why the hunts go on, why nothing we do is enough. You—and him!” Her head jerked in his direction.
“No,” Moon said, swallowing her chagrin. “He is with us, Capella. He wants to save the mers. He is doing all he can for them, just as he has for our people.”
“He controls policy for the Hegemony. He controls what his people here can or cannot do; or so he claims—” Capella Goodventure looked back at him, her eyes like searchlights. “And today not only did they slaughter the Lady’s sacred children, but they also sank the ships of our people who tried to stop it. Three people drowned— one was my own grandchild! Is that how you intended to help us, Justice?”
Moon murmured something under her breath, a prayer or a curse.
“Three people dead?” BZ repeated. “No one gave them orders to do that. They’ll be punished to the full—”
“No!” Capella Goodventure’s voice was shrill with hysteria. “No, the punishment is the Lady’s, by right. It is my duty as Her hand, to deal it out to those who are guilty—” She withdrew her hands from beneath her cloak.
BZ froze as he saw the gleam of metal in both her fists. He threw himself forward, trying to knock her off balance as she lunged at Moon. As he caught her, she swung around, bringing up one of the blades. He felt a sickening pain lance through him as his own momentum drove the blade into his side. He caught her other arm as it flailed wildly at his face; her eyes were blind with frenzy, and her strength was incredible. Moon’s hands locked over the older woman’s wrist, dragging her back away from him. She let go of the knife handle, setting him free; he staggered two steps and fell to his knees, as his body suddenly refused to obey him. He dragged himself up again, as Moon cried out; he saw blood on the other blade, as the two women struggled against the wall.
“Justice!” Abruptly there was a fourth person in the hallway. He saw a blur of blue uniform, realized it was Kitaro who had somehow appeared there. She pushed past him, her drawn stunner useless in the cramped space. She caught Capella Goodventure from behind with an arm lock and dragged her away from Moon, still screaming, still swinging the knife wildly. “Lady! Get out of here! Out!” Kitaro gasped. “I called for help—”
“BZ—” Moon hesitated, turning back to him, clutching her bloodsoaked sleeve. Her eyes filled with frantic concern.
“I’m all right,” he said roughly. “Go now, before somebody comes.”
She nodded, ashen-faced, tightlipped. He watched her go out the door, disappearing from his sight. Kitaro turned, glancing at him. “Justice—”
“No!” He lurched forward as Capella Goodventure twisted suddenly, with insane fury, blind to her own pain as she drove the remaining knife into Kitaro’s chest, once, twice. Kitaro screamed, and fell. The Goodventure woman turned back to him, and there was nothing human in her eyes. She started toward him with the knife.
His hands tightened over the slippery hilt protruding from his side; he jerked it free, cursing with agony. He held it ready in his fist, pressed back against the wall.
“Freeze!”
The hall behind him suddenly filled with uniforms, patrolmen answering Kitaro’s summons.
Capella Goodventure stared at them, her eyes wild and unreadable, the knife still in her hand. They had their stunners out, trained on her as they eased into the hallway, surrounding her. “Drop it,” someone said grimly. “Come on, let it go—”
She looked back at Gundhalinu with something like despair, her trembling hands tightening harder and harder around the knife she held, as if it were a precious treasure. And then, suddenly, she drove the blade into her own chest, into her heart, with a wail of anguish that made him shudder. She dropped like a stone to the floor, and lay still.
They were all around him then, supporting him, seeing to his wound, trying to staunch the river of blood that seemed to be welling out of him, as if he contained an endless source of it. He watched it defy them, watched it flow, watched blue figures working over the two motionless bodies that lay at his feet. He heard the rushing of the river in his ears, as his vision slowly became a tapestry of golden static, golden/blackness, until blackness swallowed them all.