The Snow Queen

48

Moon would not have believed it was possible to clear a space as long as her arm and keep it clear for even a moment in the quicksand shifting of the Festival mobs. But somehow order had been created out of chaos; somewhere in the seemingly formless super entity that was the Festival an underlying structure existed. A course had been cleared along the Street’s upper reaches for a mile below the palace, and eager spectators lined the way like the elegant townhouse walls at their backs. Most who had a viewing place had been holding it for hours, and the Blues who patrolled casually up and down before them had little trouble keeping them there. They had come to watch the beginning of the end, the first of the ancient ceremonies of the Change: the footrace that would thin the numbers of the women who had come to compete for the mask of the Summer Queen.

Moon had come out into the Street as soon as the nucleus of Summer women began to form around an elder of the Goodventure family, who carried in her the blood of Tiamat’s last line of Summer Queens. Members of that family were forbidden to become Queen at this Change, but instead bore the honored responsibility of seeing that its rituals were faithfully preserved and carried out. She had pulled a colored ribbon from one of their sacks to tie around her head — the ribbon that would give her a place at the front, middle, or back of the starting mass. The band she drew was grew, the sea: the color that put her in the front, ahead of brown for the land, blue for the sky. She tied the ribbon across her forehead, her face paley expressionless against the triumph and the disappointment around her. Of course it had been green… how could it not be? But a tension born of certainty wrapped her, tightening like tentacles; she pushed toward the front of the forming field of runners to escape it.

She looked around her as she struggled to hold a new equilibrium in the jostling mob of colored ribbons and eager Summer faces in this crowd of strangers. Most of the women who had come to the Festival intending to run in the Summer Queen’s choosing had brought with them traditional-style holiday garments: soft wool shirts and trousers dyed sea-green, summer-green, to please the Lady. They were all elaborately sewn with designs made of shell and bead and traders’ baubles, ribbons that dangled fetishes of their family totems. But she wore the nomad’s tunic she had brought back with her from Persipone’s, the only clothing she owned, its gaudy color as alien as she suddenly felt herself, among the people who should have been her own. She had covered her hair with a scarf, to hide her resemblance to the Queen. Some of the Summers had challenged her right to run because she wore no totem or proof that she was even a Summer. But then she had shown them her throat, and they had backed away. She felt the irony of wearing a Winter’s clothes today, and not ones that were rightfully hers; and yet somehow it was appropriate.

She had not seen anyone she knew, either among the runners or in the crowd of spectators beyond. Even though she knew that she could hardly expect to find anyone from Neith or its few island neighbors in these hundreds, in the thousands that filled Carbuncle, still she searched, and was disappointed. The sights and the sounds and the smells of her home surrounded her here; but her grandmother was far too old to make this voyage, and her mother — “Festivals are for the young,” her mother had said to her once, with pride and longing, “who don’t have ships to tend and mouths to feed. I had my Festival; and I hold the precious memory of it close beside me every day.” Her arm had gone around her daughter’s shoulders, steadying her on the rolling deck…

Moon whimpered, seeing the ugly truth hidden in her mother’s merry begotten memory. The woman next to her apologized and edged nervously away. Moon looked down at herself as the half-fearful sibyl-space opened around her again; suddenly glad that her mother had not come, would not watch her in the race today, whatever its outcome was. Her mother and Gran must think she was dead, and Sparks, too, by now; and maybe it was better that way. Their time of mourning must be long past. Was it better never to let them know the truth, or to always be afraid that once they had learned part of it they would somehow learn the whole, terrible truth about their children? She swallowed her grief, choking on it, turned her vision outward again.

She was not her mother’s child… and not Arienrhod’s, either. Then what am I doing here? She looked around her in sudden doubt. She was the only sibyl she had seen here anywhere. Was she the only sibyl among all the Summer people who wanted to compete? Was it really the Queen’s ambition running in her blood that made her want to be a queen herself? No, I didn’t ask for this! There must be a change; I am only a vessel. Her fists tightened as she repeated the vow. If no other sibyl ran in this race, maybe it was only because none of them knew the truth.

None of them know. She could read on the faces around her the spectrum of motives and gradations of desire that had brought the runners here: some of them hungry for the power (although the power of a Summer Queen had always been more ritual than secular), some for the honor, and some for the easy life of being worshiped as the Lady incarnate; some simply for the sheer joy of competing, a part of their celebration, with no cares at all about winning or losing. And none of them knows why it really matters, except me.

She kept her fists tight as tension wound its springs inside her, pushed forward again until she could just see the piece of weighted ribbon that marked the course’s start. The Goodventure elder was shouting for quiet and announcing the rules. She did not have to be the first in this race, she only had to be among the sacred first thirty three — and the course wasn’t long, it was meant to give some besides the strongest a chance. But there were a hundred women behind her, two hundred more… she couldn’t even see them all from where she stood.

The voice of the Goodventure elder called them all to the mark, and Moon felt her self-awareness slipping, caught in the swell of many moving forward as one. Through a gap between heads and arms she watched the fragile bunting that held back their tide — saw it fall at a signal. The mass of runners surged, sending her forward, helpless to resist if she had wanted to, and the race of the Summer Queen began.

She danced like a reef spotter through the first hundred yards, needing all her concentration just to keep on her feet in the crush before the knot of bodies began to loosen. As spaces opened she broke between, not always easily, feeling elbows bruise her sides in retribution. She couldn’t keep track of how many were ahead in the shifting field; she could only weave and spring and try to put as many of them behind her as her feet could overtake.

A mile was nothing, a mile was hardly enough to quicken her heartbeat when she and Sparks had raced along the endless gleaming beachs of Neith… But this mile ran uphill, on hard pavement, not yielding sand. Before she had reached halfway her breath rasped in her throat and her body protested with every jarring step. She tried to remember how long it had really been since she had run on that shining sand; couldn’t even remember how long it had been since shed had enough food or sleep to satisfy the body of a bird. Damn Carbuncle! There were only a dozen women ahead of her, but they were slowly gaming ground. New runners began to come up on her and pass her from behind. She saw with a kind of dread that one of them wore a brown ribbon, not green — the second group of runners was overtaking the first starters; and she stumbled as her mind left her straining legs unguided.

Two thirds of a mile, three quarters, and there were more passing her all the time, easily thirty ahead of her now, and a cramp in her side that took her breath away. They’re passing me… and they don’t know, they don’t even know what they’re reaching for! Reaching after it with the last of her strength, she saw the final distance hurtle past; suspended all other awareness until the white stone courtyard of the Winter palace was under her feet, and the next-to-last winter’s garland had fallen around her shoulders.

Laughing, gasping, dazed, she was swallowed by the ecstasy of the waiting crowd, joyously praised with handclasps, kisses, and tears. She made her way through them, took her place in the circle of winners that was forming at the very center of the courtyard. Looking back, she heard and then saw the group of musicians dressed in white, draped in garlands like her own, and wearing black chimney hats with Winter totem crests. Behind them came a small procession of Summers — more Goodventures, bearing a canopy of ornamental net woven with shells and sprays of greenery, held aloft on oars delicately carven with a fantasy of sea beasts.

And beneath the canopy came the mask of the Summer Queen. She heard the sighs and cries of admiration, like a wind through the crowd; felt her own wonder rise again at the sight of its beauty… and its power, the face of Change. Her gaze moved to the one who carried it, and she jerked with recognition: Fate Ravenglass. The circle parted to let Fate through alone; the rest of the procession circled outside, mingling its music with the crowd’s.

The Goodventure elder bowed before her, or before the strength of her artistry. “Winter crowns Summer, and the Change begins. May the Lady help you to choose wisely, Winter woman; for your sake as well as for ours.” She stood serene in her faith in the Lady’s judgment.

“I pray that I will.” Fate bowed in turn, her white gown all but hidden by the mask’s trailing sunbeams as it rested on her arms.

The Lady will choose… Why had Fate Ravenglass been picked as Her representative, if not to choose in turn the one face, the one heart and mind behind it that knew the secrets she knew about this world? But she’s almost blind. Could she even tell one face from all the rest? How would she know?

The Goodventure elder began to sway from foot to foot; the lacy drape of beaded network that covered her clothing clattered and chimed. She began to sing the ancient feast day invocation, and the ring of women began to circle slowly, stepping foot across foot, drawing Moon along. The words of the litany and response came to her easily, almost hypnotically, rooted as deeply in her memory, wrapped as profoundly around its most primitive images, as anything she still remembered. It had no true rhyme, like most of the holy songs, because the language it had once been shaped from had lost its own shape down the years; its tune fell strangely on her ears. She sang with the rest, but a part of her mind held separate, watching the pageantry that the rest of her flowed into unquestioningly: the part of her that was no longer certain Fate would choose her, bMndly, unaided. Does the sibyl mind really control what happens here? It twists me in its own directions — but can it reach beyond my hand, can it really move anything that it doesn’t hold on strings?

Moon watched Fate begin to drift out in a counter circle bearing the mask, her expression intent but formless. She won’t recognize me.

Moon bit her lip against panic, against more words, the urge to cry out, Here, here I am! Wanting to believe that it was predestination, but no longer certain that anything was predestined. She couldn’t leave it to chance — not after she had come this far, and seen so much. She has to choose me. But how—?

Moon’s memory leaped forward to the next verse, and the two levels of her consciousness fused: “Input!”

“Who knows the one that She will call,

Or what their fate will be?”

The refrain faded as she fell into Transfer, came back with a sudden intensity that deafened her. She felt herself lurch with the shock, tried to open her eyes. But her eyes were open, and still the world she saw was barely brighter than moonlight, its edges blurred and indistinct. Her other senses fed her perception all out of proportion . because she was blind! In another second she had passed through terror to the understanding that she was — Fate Ravenglass. And that somewhere in that dimly seen line of figures circling past her immobile body was one that must be caught at the other pole of this Transfer…

She watched the dim figures pass, and pass, wondering what she would find, if she would even be able to tell what was taking shape. And then she made out the one figure that stumbled in line, supported, half-carried, on the arms of the indistinguishable women at either side: herself — she was seeing herself. And Fate Ravenglass looked back with her eyes; each of them seeing her own face and knowing they did… Abruptly Moon felt her borrowed body unlock and move forward freely toward her real one, the mask held out before her in her hands. As she closed with herself she could see at last that the face was really her own. It stared at the mask, back at her, with wonder and wordless fascination. She lifted the mask with Fate’s trembling hands, moved again by its beauty as she set it firmly on her own shoulders.

As the mask settled in place she felt herself wrenched back across the Transfer gap, into her rightful mind, and heard her cry as she ended the trance. Looking out now through the eye holes of the mask, she saw Fate standing dazed before her, felt her own arms still supported by the women beside her, heard the roar of the crowd’s jubilation. But all that she remembered of the moment was Fate touching the face that was her own again: “My face — I saw my face. And the mask of the Summer Queen…”

The crowd began to close in around them, smashing the fragile circle of hands, sweeping away the also-rans. Moon’s support broke away as she regained her equilibrium; she reached out and grasped Fate’s hands, holding her steady, face to face. “Fate — it’s happened! I did it! I am the Summer Queen!”

“Yes. Yes, I know.” Fate shook her head, tears putting light in her darkened eyes. “It was meant to be. It was. It must be the first time two sibyls ever looked out of each other’s eyes, and saw themselves—” She smoothed her collar of white feathers distractedly. “You’ll be everything as Queen that I made your mask to be.”

Moon felt her heart squeezed by a sudden, heavy hand. “But not alone. I’ll need help. I’ll need people my people can trust… and yours can. Will you help me?”

The feather collar rustled with Fate’s nod. “I’m in need of a new career. Whatever I can do to help I’ll do gladly. Moon… Your Majesty.”

The netted canopy shadowed them, and the Goodventure elder came up between them, gravely gay. “Lady!” The other Goodventures bowed around her. “Your duties today are three: To go among the people and show them that the Mask Night has begun. To be carefree. To rejoice. And your duties tomorrow are three: To go down to the docks when dawn comes beyond the walls. To deliver Winter to the Sea. To rule in her place as the Lady wills.”

To deliver Winter to the Sea. Moon looked toward the palace. “I understand.”

“Then come with us, and let the people see you. Until tomorrow we are all between worlds, between Winter and Summer, between the past and the future. And you’re the harbinger.” The Goodventure woman gestured Moon under the waiting canopy.

“Fate, will you come with me?”

“Oh, yes, I’ll be along.” Fate smiled. “This may be the last time I have a chance to see my fellow human beings in all their glory, and I want to make the most of it.” She touched her artificial eye with a loving fingertip, and sorrow. “All my masks, a lifetime’s work, will bloom and fade in this one night… and soon my sight will go into the sea with the rest of Winter’s bounty, good and bad together.”

“No!” Moon shook her head. “I swear to you, Fate — this will be a real Change!” The crowd began to pry between them.

“Moon — what about Sparks?” Fate called it across the widening gap.

Moon stretched her hand fruitlessly, losing control, lost in the mob. “I don’t know! I don’t know—” Strong arms lifted her up onto a garlanded litter, and she was borne away beneath the canopy down the Street, a leaf swirling on the stream.

Everywhere as she was carried along she saw masks appearing as the revelers hid their faces, cast off their own identities; becoming their fantasies, as the Summer Queen had — as she had done. Tonight there would be no Winter or Summer, off worlder or native, right or wrong. Everywhere costumes blossomed, music played,masked faces laughed and sang and shouted for the Queen. Everywhere people followed alongside her litter, offering her food and drink and gifts, trying simply to touch her for luck. It was her duty today, tonight, to be the merry mayfly, symbol of life’s fleeting joy; because not until tomorrow would her rule and the world become genuine again… And she was grateful for the mask she wore that was all those things to them, that let her hide the truth that whenever she became a part of the moment time leaped ahead again for her, and tomorrow took away her laughter. Because if her plan had failed, if Sirus had failed her, tomorrow she would speak the words and give the sign as Summer Queen, and Sparks would drown…