Gundhalinu’s eyes filled with sudden compassion. “But you’re here, now … Vanamoinen. You were brought back because your knowledge was needed. You’re here, and so am I, and I need your help. And I don’t believe that’s an accident. We were meant to work together again, on this—” He leaned forward, shining with urgency and hope.
“What?” Reede said thickly.
“You’re right, the water of life isn’t what’s important about the mers. It’s their survival. It’s what they were created to do—for … for … you know what I mean. You know what I’m trying to tell you—”
Reede looked at him blankly. “No. I don’t. What the hell are you talking about?”
Gundhalinu swore softly, in anger or frustration. “Damn it … Vanamoinen! You know why it matters. You put the mers here. You have to remember why, for gods’ sakes!”
Reede felt his mind tumble and spin, fragments of shattered mirror shaken inside a bag of living flesh, a bowl of bone, until he bled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not Vanamoinen. I’m Reede! And I don’t know shit about it, just shut up about it! Leave me alone!” He pushed to his feet, starting toward the door.
He stopped, as another figure appeared suddenly before him, blocking his way. For a brief moment he thought that it was Ariele standing there, pale-haired, wrapped in a man’s robe. But the hair was wrong, long, a cloud of white … the face was wrong, grown older— The Queen. He looked back at Gundhalinu, in sudden surprise, sudden understanding.
“Reede Kullervo—” the Queen said, coming forward, the robe whispering softly around her as she held out her hand to him.
He stared at her, not knowing what to do. He took her hand automatically, bobbed his head in an awkward obeisance. “Lady,” he murmured, remembering the proper form of address, and let her hand go as if it were burning hot. He saw Ariele again in his mind, wondering what the Queen knew, if she knew— He looked down.
“You’re the one who helped BZ recreate the stardrive, aren’t you?” she asked, and her voice seemed to ground him, draining the energy of his sudden panic, letting him stand still. She studied him a moment longer, with an intentness that was somehow oddly comforting.
“Yes,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. He glanced at Gundhalinu again, saw him nod.
“We’ve been trying to find a way to save the mers from the Hegemony,” she said “We know they are intelligent, but it’s not enough. We think that their songs contain a—some kind of coded data. But it’s incomplete; the slaughter has decimated them to the point where they’ve lost their past, and they don’t even realize what they’ve lost. And the songs are … important, somehow, to—to the well-being of the Hegemony. If we can just understand their purpose, we may be able to save them. But we can’t … we can’t …”
Reede stared at her, seeing her suddenly afflicted with the same inability to say what she meant that had struck Gundhalinu. “What’s the matter with you?” he said, half frowning.
She shook her head, and her agate-colored eyes closed in frustration. “I can’t tell you,” she murmured, as if the words filled her mouth like gall. “He can’t—”
“Literally,” Gundhalinu broke in, rubbing his face. “It’s protecting itself. …”
Reede felt something gleam in the depths of his mind, a spark of comprehension threatening to catch fire. He lunged after a memory; it squirted out of his grasp. “Survey—?” he whispered, empty-handed, empty-eyed. “You mean Survey?”
Gundhalinu shook his head, like a man who’d had his tongue cut out.
Reede laughed harshly. “Gods, aren’t we a set!” His hands jerked. “What the he)! is happening here, is this catching—?” He hit himself viciously on the side of the head.
“It doesn’t matter—” The Queen reached out, taking hold of his arm. “You don’t have to understand—just believe that it’s important. That’s enough. Work with us on the mersong; let your mind do what it was meant to do. Then maybe it will all come back to you.…”
Reede blinked suddenly, looking down at her hand; his free hand rose to covei it where it rested on his sleeve, closed over it almost convulsively.
“Reede.” Gundhalinu got up from his seat, moving toward them painfully, and almost reluctantly. “I know the Source has some hold over you. If you want to get away from him, we can help you. Any hold can be broken. Just tell us what you need.”
Reede’s hand pried the Queen’s fingers loose from his arm. He took a deep, ragged breath, feeling the skeleton’s fist of the truth close around his throat. “You can’t help me, Gundhalinu.” He shook his head. “Nobody can.”
“At least tell me what kind of trouble you’re in.” Gundhalinu held out his hands. “You know me,” he said, meeting Reede’s gaze with an odd intensity. “You know you can trust me with your life. And I need your help—”
Reede shook his head, turned away. “Can’t. I can’t help you—!”
“It’s your whole reason for existence!”
Reede turned back; the turning motion made him giddy. He felt as if his entire life had begun to strobe. “I’ll think it over… got to think about it. Got to go now, and think about it.” Unsure of the consequences, unsure of himself, he started toward the door. He glanced back once as he reached it. “Ask your husband about the mers, Lady,” he said sourly. “He knows some things he hasn’t told you, too.…” They made no move to stop him as he went out.
Moon stood beside BZ, feeling his arm draw her close as they watched the tall, slender, unsteady figure of Reede Kullervo go out of the room.
“Gods,” BZ murmured, hearing the door slam. “I hope this is the right thing.’ His hand tightened at his side.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” she asked.
He looked back at her, his face troubled. “I can’t force him, Moon. He’s barely holding it together now. If he breaks we’ll lose Vanamoinen forever.” He shook his head. “We can’t risk that. We have to believe that he’ll come back on his own.”
“He’s only a boy, BZ,” she said softly, still seeing the despair, the knowledge of something more terrible than her own deepest fears, that lay in Reede’s eyes. “He’s so afraid.” She put her arms around him, holding on.
“He should be.” BZ sighed, stroking her hair, kissing her. “He has every right to be, may the gods help him… . Come back to bed with me.”
She nodded, letting him lead the way, setting his own pace as they climbed the stairs. “What kind of hold does the Source have on him? Is it drugs?”
BZ glanced at her in surprise. “Yes, probably. How did you know?
“I remember the Source.” She followed him into his bedroom, holding on to his hand. “Arienrhod used the water of life to buy virals from him, at Winter’s end—”
He grimaced, remembering, and nodded. “That’s what he does best. But I don’t know what he has Reede chained with. It’s nothing ordinary, or Reede could get it somewhere else.” He shrugged out of his robe, unfastened his pants and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed to pull them off.
Moon let her own borrowed robe slip from her shoulders, the smooth warmth of its imported fabric like the caress of his hands along her skin. She lay down in his bed, sliding beneath the covers as if she were entering the sea, as if she belonged there. He lay down beside her, and for a moment she forgot the aching weariness of her body as he settled next to it. She watched the lines of pain and weariness disappear from his face as his fingers brushed her cheek, touched the bandageskm still covering her arm. She smiled; her smile faded.
“BZ,” she said, “who were you talking about, when you said ‘we’? ‘We know, you said, ‘we suspect’— You said that more than once, and you weren’t talking about you and me.”