And as more time passed, adversity had freed her to see everything she looked at in new ways. The offworlders had forced her to house the Sibyl College within the palace’s walls, and the College had filled the rattling emptiness of its chambers with activity and purpose.
Now, when she looked around her at the beauty of the sculpted detail along the ancient ceiling line, the newly painted murals, even the graceful forms of the aging, imported furniture, she saw the artistry of the human minds and hands that had created them. They nad become a symbol of the potential that existed in her, around her, within the women and men—Summers, Winters, and offworlders—who had helped her to build the future that she had been driven to seek. She realized that seeing longtime friends and trusted companions against the setting of this place had become one of the few things in her life that brought her pleasure.
And now, she thought, as the image of the Ariele disappearing into the sunrise overlaid her vision, they were her only hope. She glanced down at the recorder in front of her and the pile of printout data that she had had laboriously hand-copied, after Vhanu had shut down her computer system. She looked up again, at Tammis beside her, his eyes filled with concern—seeing in his eyes three lives: his own, his father’s, the life of the unborn child that Merovy carried. By right there should have been nothing but joy in her as she looked at him, seeing the future and the past; but she could not feel anything, not even grief. A clear, impenetrable wall seemed to nse between her and all emotion, allowing her to see what remained that was right and good in her life, but not to take any comfort in it.
She looked on around the circle, seeing the intent, worried faces of Clavally and Danaquil Lu, Fate Ravenglass with her vision sensor like a shining crown, the two dozen other sibyls who were waiting expectantly. She could not tell them everything; but she knew that at least she could trust them to give her the data she needed without a full explanation.
She called the recorder on, and the eerie chorale of the mersong filled the air. She watched their expressions change: the peace, pleasure, surprise and incomprehension that overtook them as they listened.
And then she told them all she could, explaining the part they must play to complete the fragmented mathematical sequences hidden inside the songs. She passed them the copies of the data she had collected from Sparks’s files—thinking of him suddenly and painfully, thinking about the strangeness of the parallel lives they had come to lead. She described his work to the assembled sibyls, wondering as she spoke what would come of the journey he had taken alone; whether he would bring their daughter back from the place the Ondineans called the Land of Death, or be lost there forever with her. There were few questions from the people listening around her; none that she could not answer.
With a few final words about urgency and secrecy, she left them to their work. She made her way back through the halls into the upper levels of the palace; offices, libraries, studies passed in a pale blur of exhaustion. She had not slept at all last night, lying rigid and alone in her bed through the interminable hours before the ritual at dawn. Now that she had done all she could, about everything over which she had any control, the last of the momentum that her fury had given her had spent itself.
She saw again in her mind the Ariele carrying Kirard Set Wayaways out to sea—the only one of her tormentors on whom she had been able to take revenge. She let herself imagine him reaching shore, half-drowned, exhausted, pulling himself onto the docks below the city … saw herself waiting for him there, with a knife in her hand, to keep her final promise to him….
Sickened, she pressed her hand to her face; pain throbbed in her head with every heartbeat, as the headache that had been threatening her since she rose this morning burst into blinding life. She had eaten nothing all day, but the very thought of food repulsed her. She reached her own bedroom and stopped, leaning against the doorframe, unable to force herself to go inside.
She went on along the hall, until at last she reached the doorway to the room that had been Arienrhod’s. The bedchamber waited as Arienrhod had left it, over twenty years ago, and had not been slept in by anyone since she had died. Moon opened the door, and stood gazing inside.
“Do you need anything, Lady?” A servant passing in the hall hesitated, inclining her head.
Moon looked at the woman, pressing her mouth to stop its sudden urge to ridiculous laughter. Need anything—? “I need to rest,” she said finally, her voice thick. “I don’t want to be disturbed for a long time. …”
“Yes, Lady.” The woman nodded respectfully. She glanced at the open doorway and hesitated, as if she wanted to say more, before she went on down the hall.
Moon went into the room, retreating into its silence. Its wide windows were hidden by heavy curtains; it was entirely self-contained, a womb into which she could withdraw. She undressed and lay down in the nacreous, shellform bed, wrapping the bedclothes around her, her arms and legs embracing the softness and emptiness. No memory lay waiting for her here, no phantom arms to reach out to her, no whisper of gentle words, the remembered heat of no one else’s body to warm her own… .
She darkened the bedside lights, throwing the ghost-haunted shadows of the room into utter blackness, so that it did not matter whether her eyes were open or closed. Utterly alone at last, she folded her arms around her shivering flesh and began to weep, silently at first, and then wrackingly, because there was no one to hear her, no one to comfort her, no one to forgive her.
She wept until she had no strength left, until she could only lie still, closer to sleep than to waking. She waited there, her body unresisting, her mind surrendering, ready to be taken by oblivion.
But instead she felt something else seize hold of her—an irresistible force drawing her down into a darkness even more complete…. The Transfer.
She let go, let herself fall, through the darkness and into the corruscating light/sound of a place she remembered, feeling hope come alive inside her, almost unbearably. (BZ—?) she called, seeing her voice go out from her in ripple-rings of harmonic light. (BZ, where are you?)
(No …) the answer came, and the touch of it against her mind was a stranger’s.
(Who—?) she thought, because there was something almost familiar about the disembodied patterns of the other’s contact.
(KR Aspundh—)
(KR—?) Her disbelief rippled out from her like tolling bells.
(Yes, my dear… .) His thought turned fond and gentle, like the feathery touch of an old man’s hand against her cheek. (After so long. BZ told me what had become of you, all that you have become… .)
(BZ—where is he, KR? How is he? How can I reach him?)
(Slowly,) he whispered. (Go slowly, Moon—though I should address you properly as Lady—my strength is not what it was, even when you knew me. This is difficult for rne… . BZ is being held by the Hegemonic government. He will be sentenced without trial, the Golden Mean will see to it, because they fear his popularity. They mean to be rid of him, because of his opposition to the water of life … to send him somewhere he will never return from. He told me to contact you. Why has all this happened. Moon? He said that you could tell me.)
(Lady’s Eyes— I can’t, KR….) She felt her desperation and fear grow blinding, making her thoughts incoherent, drowning his contact. She forced the heart of ice that had formed within her these past weeks to cool her blood, letting her see clearly, and think dispassionately. (It’s impossible. I can’t explain it, any more than he can, even like this, even to you. I can only tell you that if I fail in what I was meant to do, every world on which there are still sibyls will suffer … including Kharemough. And there are only two people who can help me—BZ, and a man named Reede Kullervo. But something called the Brotherhood has taken Kullervo, and my daughter. I don’t know how to save them. My husband went after them to Ondinee … BZ believed you might be able to help them. But how can we save them, KR, how can we save BZ, if even the ones he trusted have betrayed us—?)