Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen

Sparks stood just beyond reach, his face burning. The memory of what Herne had done to him, and failed to do, there in the Hall of the Winds drowned his compassion like a gnat in a bowl of bitterness. “You’re no man at all, Herne, any more. And Arienrhod is all mine!” He turned and started away down the alley.

“You fool!” Herne ’s angry laughter beat at his retreating back. “Arienrhod is no man’s! You belong to her, and she’ll use you until she uses you up—”

Sparks walked on. not looking back, until he reached the corner of the Street. But he did not start uphill toward the palace; he stood while his anger drained away and left him purposeless, before he chose the downhill route. He walked aimlessly for a long time, moving into the heart of the Maze. He passed the bars and casinos that had become a second home to him; glanced desultorily at shop windows filled with imported spices and herbs, jewelry, paintings, caftans, terminals… and a hundred different technological toys: costly, sophisticated baubles spread out for the jostling free port trade and the wondering eyes of the natives. Once every window had stopped him in his tracks, and a walk in the Maze had been like a walk through heaven. Now they barely caught his eyes; and somehow, without his being aware of it, time had coated his awe with a rind of disillusionment, and the wine of wonder had turned to vinegar.

Even the many-colored alleys, the fert’le meeting ground where artisans of this world and seven more let their creativity bloom, had grown strangely dim and separate from his own reality. He was no longer drawn into the sight and fragrance and music as he moved along them; and now the vivid bruise left on his awareness by Herne ’s living death pressed painfully, acutely, against the walls of yielding glass that closed him in. Surrounded by the beating heart of the city he had come here to discover, he discovered instead that somehow the thing he had reached out for had slipped through his hands again. Like everything he had ever cared about, or counted on… His hand closed violently over the stem of a kinetic sculpture in the display stall he was passing; harsh notes clashed among its spines, leaping like cats. But the jangling isotonic music stopped at his skin, the cool metal stem swayed into another dimension. Or maybe he only imagined their unreality; but still it did not pass… Why? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong?

He let it go in disgust as the sculptor came indignantly to the door of his shop. He went on, realizing only now what alley he had come into: It was the Citron Alley, and ahead of him he could already see Fate

Ravenglass sitting as she always did with her trays and trimmings on her doorstep. The place he had come to once before for shelter, and been taken in without question or demand. The place that he could always come back to, a haven of calm and creation in a universe of indifference and broken parts.

He saw that Fate was not alone, saw her visitor rise from the step in a cloud of midnight-blue veils embroidered with rainbows. He recognized her friend Tiewe — by the veils, he had never seen anything more of her than her ebony hands. He heard the sweet song of her hidden necklace of bells. He had asked Fate why she never showed herself, thinking that she must be disfigured; but Fate had said that it was a custom of her homeworld. He had seen only one or two others like her since, carefully protected by chaperones. Tiewe was uneasy in the presence of men, and he felt a jealous gratification as he realized that she was leaving because she had seen him. Fate had many friends — but there were none who seemed to be anything more than friends to her. He had wondered from time to time about her celiacy.

As Tiewe moved away, trailing music, Fate’s face turned to his approach: half a smile, half a frown of concentration. “Sparks — is that you?” Malkin the cat meowed affirmation from his crouching spot in her doorway.

“Yes. Hello, Fate.” Sparks stopped in front of her, suddenly uncertain.

“Well, what a nice surprise. Sit down, don’t be a stranger. You’ve been too much of a stranger these past months.”

He grimaced his guilt as he sat down, carefully, among the trays on the stoop. “I know. I’m sorry, I—”

“No, no, don’t apologize.” She waved her hands, absolving him goodnaturedly. “After all, how often have I come to the palace to visit you?”

He laughed. “Never.”

“Then I should be grateful you come here at all.” She felt for the mask she had laid down. “Tell me gossip about the court — what they wear, how they play, what marvelous inconsequentialities they brood over. I need some cheering up. Tiewe is inspired with a needle and floss, but such a sad person…” She looked away, frowning at nothing, reached out abruptly for a tray of beads and upset it. “Damn!” Malkin leaped up from the doorway and disappeared into the shop.

“Here, let me—” Sparks leaned out, barely catching a cascade of shimmering green as it poured over the step’s edge. He righted the tray and refilled it patiently, soothed by the mindlessness of the task. “There.” He handed her three beads at a time, falling back gratefully into the habits and the comfortable feel of his days with her.

“See how I’ve missed you.” She smiled at the beads dropped into her palm. “But not just for your patient hands — for your lilting Summer songs and the freshness of your wonder.”

Sparks let his fingers dig into his knees, said nothing.

“Will you stay and play for me awhile? It’s been too long between songs in this alley.”

“I—” He swallowed the stone in his throat. “I didn’t bring my flute.”

“No?” More incredulous than if he’d told her he wasn’t wearing clothes. “Why not?”

“I — don’t feel like playing, lately.”

She sat leaning forward over the mask form, waiting for something more.

“I’ve been too busy,” defensively.

“I thought that was what you did for the Queen — played your music.”

“Not any more. I do… uh, other things, now.” He shifted on the hard surface of the step. “Other… things.”

She nodded; he had forgotten how disconcerting the gaze of her third eye was. “Like gambling and drinking too much wine at the Parallax View.” It was a statement of fact.

“How’d you know — where I’ve been?” not quite willing to admit the rest of it.

“I can smell you. Their incense is imported from D’doille. Every place has its own identity, and so does every drug. And your voice is just a little slurred.”

“Tell me if I won or lost.”

“You won. If you’d lost you wouldn’t sound so smug about it.”

He laughed, but it was not an easy laugh. “You’d make a good Blue.”

“No.” She shook her head, and searched a bead for its hole with her needle, “To become a Blue a person needs a certain sense of moral superiority; and I refuse to pass judgment on my fellow sinners Ah—” as the bead slipped into place. “Some green feathers, please.”

“I know you don’t.” He passed feathers to her.

“And is that why you’ve come here today?” She dipped her fingers in glue and dabbed the feather stems. “As long as you quit the tables while you’re ahead, the Queen can’t object to how you spend your free time and money, can she?”

“She wants me to gamble. She gives me the money.” The words came out inexorably; he could feel the forbidden secret rise inside him, knowing that it was only a matter of time.

“She does? Are you that good?” Fate said it as though she doubted it.

“No. I do it to learn things, about how the off worlders think, what their plans are, so I can tell her…”

“I thought that’s what she has Starbuck for.”