"Is the hand of Gaea on this child? I command you to answer."
"I can't, I can't, I can't see ... see ... I think maybe-"
"Speak!"
"No, no, no! Gaea touched her long ago. Gaea knows she is here. Gaea planned the child's family, but did not touch them. Gaea's hand is not on this child."
And suddenly, neither was Cirocco's. Robin sat, blinking, feeling somehow that a terrible weight had been lifted from her head.
"You can come up now, Robin. Slow and easy. Everything's all right."
Robin did come up. She felt refreshed, took a deep breath, blinked again, and turned around. Cirocco was stowing a bottle in a knapsack. In one hand she held a familiar object: an old Colt .45 automatic. Cirocco handed it to her. Robin turned it over in her hand. The safety was off. She put it back on, and looked up.
"This is my gun."
"I took it from you before Cirocco woke you up," Chris said.
"What was that?" Robin gestured to the pack.
"My demon." Her eyes bored into Robin's. "Can you keep a secret?"
Robin returned the gaze, and finally nodded.
"If that's the way you want it."
Cirocco nodded, and relaxed a little. "I can tell you only that it was something that had to be done. I used to have another method. It wasn't as reliable, and not nearly so easy." For a moment there was terrible pain in her eyes. She looked away, then back. "Ask Conal about it sometime. Wait till he's got a little wine in him."
"You thought I was a spy for Gaea?"
"I had to assume you could be. Could you be sure you weren't?"
Robin was about to deliver an indignant of course I could, but stopped herself. She thought about tiny time capsules, virgin births. Gaea touched her long ago. Gaea planned her family.
"She can do anything at all, can't she?"
"She'd like you to believe that. But, yes, just about. You have no idea yet just how bad that can be."
"Would you have killed me?"
"Yes."
Robin thought she should be angry about that, but she wasn't. She was oddly comforted. If Gaea had laid a slimy trap in her body, she would rather be dead.
"What about Nova?" she said, suddenly.
"Now you're starting to be properly paranoid," Cirocco said, nodding. "But you've got a long way to go to catch up with me. I examined Nova hours ago. I thought it wise... considering her temperament, that she not remember it. I told her to forget, and she will."
"And Adam?"
"Innocent as a baby," Chris said, and smiled at her. She smiled back, suddenly remembering how warmly she had liked him, many years ago. She was even willing to forgive him his hair, at least for now. Then she looked at her surroundings for the first time, and frowned.
"What is this place?" she asked.
"The fountain of youth," Cirocco said.
There had once been twelve fountains in Gaea. The one in Oceanus had been destroyed in the Rebellion. The one in Thea was deep beneath the ice and the ones in Mnemosyne and Tethys were buried in sand. Of the remaining eight, seven had been abruptly shut down one day twenty years ago, a day that had also seen the death of the first incarnation of Gaea and a rain of cathedrals from Heaven.
But Gaea did not control Dione, because the central brain of Dione was dead. She could not influence the land for good or evil. She could send her troops in and she could make Bellinzona a living hell, but the deeper functions beneath the surface were beyond her.
Dione did surprisingly well in spite of that. Cirocco thought the gremlins might have a hand in it. For whatever reason, plants continued to grow, water flowed, and air circulated.
And the fountain brewed.
The fountain was the primary reason Chris had built Tuxedo Junction where he had. He needed it as much as Cirocco did. It seemed a good idea to be close enough to keep an eye on it.
"How do I know it won't hurt me?" Robin asked.
"You don't have to do it," Cirocco said.
"I know that, you told me that, but ... how do you know? Maybe it's a trick. Maybe Gaea's hand is on you."
"If it is, you're sunk already," Cirocco pointed out. "You've already said you trust me. Either you do, or you don't."
"I do. Emotionally."
"That's the only way it works. Logic has nothing to do with it. There's no logical way to prove Gaea isn't controlling me."
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm just nervous."
"Don't be. Just get undressed."
Cirocco turned away, sensing that Robin was as nervous about getting undressed as about anything else. She thought about sending Chris away, letting him come back later for his own treatment. Then she turned and saw Robin stepping out of her pants and knew Chris had nothing to do with it. She hoped nothing showed in her face, but she felt heat in the back of her throat, the choking taste of sudden pity.
Robin looked very sad, standing there in the nude. She would have looked sad anyway, but to one who had seen her glory, it was heartbreaking. All the tattoos had faded badly. Cirocco had already seen the Eye and the Pentasm on her head, and part of the snake on her arm. They had been multi-colored and bright when Robin was nineteen. Now they were muddy, with a hint of dull red or murky green in a design made up mostly of slate-gray. Her fourth tattoo-the snake around her leg-was in the same shape as the rest. But the fifth had been vandalized.
It was no great loss to the art world, Cirocco thought, but it was still butchery. Robin had known early in life that any children she bore would have the same disease she came to Gaea to eradicate. In a surge of youthful bravado, she had made a hideous design on her belly. It showed a shadowy monster tearing through her skin, trying to break free from her womb to the outside world with teeth and claws.
"Nova was so damn big," Robin said, ruefully, rubbing the scar that had made the tattoo even more ugly. "I had to have a Calpurnian section." She stood with shoulders slumped, trying to make it look as if her hands just happened to be clasped over her abdomen. Her skin was pasty, and her hair lifeless. Her face was seamed and even her teeth didn't look good. Robin had been letting herself go for quite a time. Aging was one thing; this was something else.
"Never mind," Cirocco said. "This will put a stop to that."
She waded into the water, and held out her hand.
It was hotter than Robin had believed possible. She felt the heat in an odd way, aware of it, but not feeling burned.
They took it in easy steps. First out to the ankles, then the knees, then a pause before going in up to the hip. Chris was on one side of her, Cirocco on the other. They both held her hands.
The water-if water it was-had a sweet smell, and was the color and consistency of honey. No, she realized, that wasn't right. It wasn't syrupy. Maybe it was more like nectar.
She went in up to the waist, and she gasped. The fluid was oozing inside her. She could feel it, like a fine oil, as it filled her bowels and her vagina. It seemed that it ought to feel disgusting, but the plain fact was that it didn't. It felt wonderful. It felt better than anything she had ever known. She shuddered, and felt her knees grow weak. Cirocco supported her. Then the waters were covering her breasts.
She relaxed into Cirocco's arms, as the Wizard had told her to do.
She closed her eyes, felt a hand pinch her nostrils, and she was lowered into the water.
It was a dreamy sensation. There was no reason ever to come out. The need to take a breath was building, but when it got strong she felt Cirocco's lips press against hers, and she inhaled the Wizard's breath. She let it dribble out slowly.
She did that for a long time. Robin didn't count, but she knew it was a long time. Then she stopped. Robin felt the urge to breathe building in her again. Cirocco had told her what to do, but she was still a little frightened. Did she really trust the Wizard that much?