At last the fragrance of a hundred separate spices and herbs pulled him away, to spend a few of his coins filling his empty stomach with a feast of strange delights. Afterward he shed his slicker for a shirt of red silk, chains of glass and copper beads; the shopkeeper took the rest of his money. But as he started back through the evening alleys to his corner, to try to earn keep for the night, he sang a silent prayer of thanks to the Lady for the gift of his music that She had sent with him into Carbuncle. With his music he could survive, while he learned the rules of his new life Four off worlders in spacer coveralls without insignia, who had walked the alley behind him, closed around him abruptly and dragged him into the dark crack between two buildings.
“What do you want—?” He twisted his head, freed his mouth from a hand that reeked of machine lubricant. Blinking frantically in the dim light, he saw the three others, not sure he really saw white teeth bared in the grin of a closing hunt, but sure of the gunmetal gleam of something deadly held by one, and the restraining cuffs, more hands reaching out for him as the crushing grip tightened across his throat.
He threw back his head and felt it impact in the face of the man behind him, heard a grunt of pain, then used his elbow and his heavy boots. The man fell back, cursing unintelligibly; and Sparks stumbled free, opened his mouth to shout for help.
But the shadow with the gunmetal gleam used his weapon first. The shout went out of Sparks in a gasp as black lightning struck him. He fell forward on his face, a string-cut puppet, helpless to keep his head from cracking on the pavement. But there was no pain, only dull impact, and the dry rattle of a thousand synapse lines gone dead in a body that could not respond. A band of steel was tightening around his throat, he heard the ugly sound of his own strangling.
A foot rolled him. The shadow men closed over him, looking down; he saw their smiles clearly this time, as they saw the terror on his face.
“How much did you hit him with, lard fingers Looks like he’s choking.”
“Let him choke, the wormy little bastard. Brain damage won’t hurt his price off world The man he had hit in the face wiped blood from a split lip.
“Yeah, he’s a pretty one, ain’t he? Not just mine fodder, nosiree. We’ll get a load for him on Tsieh-pun.” Laughter; a boot settled on his stomach, pressed. “Keep breathing, pretty boy. That’s the way.”
One of them knelt, locked his useless hands with the metal cuffs. The man with the bloody face dropped down beside him, pulled something from a pocket, flicked a switch at its base. A narrow blade of light flamed, the length of the man’s hand; fingers of his other hand probed Sparks ’s mouth, found his tongue. “Last words, pretty boy?”
Help me! But his scream was silent.
5
“Gods, I hate this duty!” Police Inspector Geia Jerusha PalaThion jerked the end of her scarlet cape free of the patrol craft door seal The car trembled lightly, hovering on repellers in the palace courtyard at the high end of Carbuncle’s Street.
Her sergeant looked at her, an ironic half-smile crumpling the pale freckles on his dark, fine-boned face. “You mean you don’t enjoy visiting royalty, Inspector?” innocently.
“You know what I mean, Gundhalinu.” She jerked the cape roughly around to open from one shoulder, hiding the utilitarian dusty-blue of the duty uniform beneath it. A brooch with the Hegemonic seal pinned its folds. “I mean, BZ—” she gestured-”that I hate having to dress up like something out of a costume strobe to play spaceman’s burden with the Snow Queen.”
Gundhalinu tapped the flash-shield at the front of his flaring helmet. Her helmet had been sprayed gold; his was still white, and he was cape less “You should be glad the Commander doesn’t put a potted plant up there, Inspector, to make you more impressive… You have to look the part when you go to lay down universal law before the Mother lovers, don’t you?”
“Manure.” They began to walk toward the massive doors of the ceremonial entrance, across the intricate spiral patterns of pale inlaid stone. At the far side of the courtyard two Winter servants scrubbed the stones with long-handled brushes. They were always out here, scrubbing, keeping it flawless. Alabaster? she wondered, looking down, and thought about sand, and heat, and sky. There were none of those things here, not anywhere in this cold, spun stone confection of a city. This courtyard marked the beginning of the Street, the beginning of the world, the beginning of everything in Carbuncle. Or the end. She saw the frigid sky of the upper latitudes glaring at them helplessly beyond the storm walls. “Arienrhod is no more taken in by this charade than we are. The only possible good that could come out of this would be if she believes we’re as stupid as we look.”
“Yes, but what about all their primitive rituals and superstitions, Inspector? I mean, these are people who still believe in human sacrifice. Who deck up in masks and have orgies in the street every time the Assembly comes to visit—”
“Don’t you celebrate, when the Prime Minister drops in on Kharemough every few decades to let you kiss his feet?”
“It’s hardly the same thing. He is a Kharemoughi.” Gundhalinu drew himself up, shielding himself from contamination. “And our celebrations are dignified.”
Jerusha smiled. “All a matter of degree. And before you start throwing around cultural judgments, Sergeant, go back and study the ethnographies until you really understand this world’s traditions.” She turned her own face into a mask of official propriety, letting him see it while she presented it to the Queen’s guards. They stood stiffly at attention, doing their own costumed imitation of the ofiworlder police. The immense, time-gnawed doors opened for her without hesitation.
“Yes, ma’am.” Their polished boots rang on the corridor leading to the Hall of the Winds. Gundhalinu looked aggrieved. He had been on Tiamat for a little less than a standard year, and had been her assistant for most of that time. She liked him, and thought he liked her; she felt that he was on his way to becoming a competent career officer. But his homevrorld was Kharemough, the world that dominated the Hegemony, and a world dominated by the technocracy that produced the Hegemony’s most sophisticated hardware. She suspected that Gundhalinu was a younger son from a family of some rank, forced into this career by rigid inheritance laws at home, and he was Tech through and through. Jerusha thought a little sadly that a hundred replays of the orientation tapes would never teach him any tolerance.
“Well,” she said more kindly, “I’ll tell you one man in a mask who probably fits all your prejudices, and mine too — and that’s Star buck. And he’s an off worlder whoever or whatever else he is.” She looked at the frescoes of chill Winter scenes along the entry hall, tried to wonder how many times they had been painted and repainted. But in her mind’s eye she already saw Starbuck standing at the Queen’s right hand, wearing a sneer under that damned executioner’s hood while he looked down on the hamstrung representatives of the Law.
“He wears a mask for the same reasons as any other thief or murderer,” Gundhalinu said sourly.
“True enough. Living proof that no world has a monopoly on regressive behavior… and that scum tends to rise to the top.” Jerusha slowed, hearing the sigh of a slumbering giant deep in the planet’s bowels. She took a deep breath of her own against the Trial by Air that was a part of the ritual in every visit to the palace, and shivered under her cloak with more than the growing chill of the air. She never got over the fear, just as she never got over her amazement at the thing that caused it: the place they called the Hall of the Winds.
She saw one of the nobility waiting for them at the brink of the abyss, glad that for once the Queen had seen fit not to keep them waiting. The less time she stood thinking about it, the less trouble she would have getting across. It might mean that Arienrhod was in a good mood — or simply that she was too preoccupied with other matters to indulge in petty harassments today. Jerusha was thoroughly informed about the spy system the Queen had had installed throughout the city, and particularly here in the palace. The Queen enjoyed setting up minor ordeals to demoralize her opposition… and it was obvious to Jerusha that she also enjoyed watching the victims sweat.