Herne’s smoldering stare lay waiting for her when she turned her head back again — knowing whom her thoughts belonged to in this final moment.
“Forever… Herne.”
He shook his head once. “We’re forever. This is. Death is. Life’s what doesn’t last.”
“We live while someone remembers us. And they’ll never forget me now—” Because her reincarnation already stood in her place. She had no will left to let her look back at Moon once more, or at Sparks. Never look back.
Moon raised her hands to the Sea, crying like a gull into the storm of the crowd’s anticipation. “Lady Sea, Mother of us all, accept our gifts and return them ninefold, accept our sins and bring us renewal, accept the soul of Winter and let it be — reborn.” She faltered imperceptibly. “Let spring come to Summer!”
Arienrhod felt the cart lurch as the Summers pushed it forward, watched the oily water surface draw near. The tide was at full, and it lay below the pier’s edge like a distorted mirror. Let it happen. It was not in vain. The howls and moans of the crowd were a hymn to the future, praising her memory. The cart began to tilt under her; she leaned forward, looking for her reflection as it slipped…
55
Moon saw the cart strike the water, plunge and reemerge; heard it, felt its impact vibrate in her bones. The crowd’s roaring went on and on, hideously. The boat form drifted away from the dock, lowering in the water, swinging slowly until she could see Starbuck’s hidden face and the face of the Snow Queen, Arienrhod… herself: serene with drug stupor, bound to her impotent lover in a grotesque parody of an embrace. The boat began to spiral more rapidly as it filled with water. Moon tried to shut her eyes, but they would not close against the hypnotic final movement of the death dance on the water. She remembered her own ordeal by sea, remembered all that had brought her to this place, again, sacrifice upon sacrifice. And still she could not look away The boat lurched suddenly, as the faces revolved again toward the crowd, and in the blink of an eye it was gone. Moon blinked again and again, but it did not reappear. The sea surface lay in unperturbed undulation, with only a telltale litter of boughs to mark Her acceptance of Her peoples’ offering. The crowd’s roaring was like a storm, and the underworld trembled. Moon watched the lazy motion of the swells, standing as fluid and unresponsive as the Sea Herself.
One of the Summers came forward at last, touched her arm hesitantly. Moon shuddered under the touch, and breathed again. “Lady?” He bowed as Moon turned at last. The Summers acknowledged their Queen’s role as the Sea Mother incarnate, and did not use the artificial off world form of royal address. “The unmasking—”
“I know.” She nodded, looking back over her shoulder at the sea even as she spoke. Fair voyage, safe haven. She moved away from the edge of the dock, into the crowd’s eye once more. “Lady”… I am the Queen.
“The Queen… the Queen… the Queen is dead. Long live the Queen!” The shouts of the Summers echoed inside her, a mockery.
She placed her hands on her mask, hands that felt damp and chill like the wind through the underworld. “My people—” She felt her body resist the motion of exposing her face again; suddenly, disconcertingly aware of the danger she had only glimpsed in the eyes of the Summers who stood here on the pier around her. Now her resemblance to Arienrhod would be obvious to everyone — and especially to the off worlders. If they even suspected the truth… She shook her head, shaking the rest of the words loose that she must say to the waiting crowd: “Winter is past, Summer has come at last. The Lady has taken our offering, and will return it ninefold. The life that was is dead — let it be cast away, like a battered mask, an outgrown shell. Rejoice now, and make a new beginning!” She lifted the mask from her head.
All of the crowd together — Winters, Summers, even off worlders-became one in this one moment. Their shouts of joy and the rustle of countless masks being torn from countless heads crescendoed, baring faces freed for that moment from all past sorrows, sins, and fears. Their celebration and adulation lifted her up onto its shoulders, swept into her heart. This world will be free!
But as she spoke the words, holding her mask high, the crowd’s voice changed; the cavernous underworld reverberated with the cries of a people who saw a thing beyond their understanding, and could not deny it… “Arienrhod — Arienrhod!” Moon felt the Summers’ superstition curdle, felt the disbelief spreading like paranoia through the crowd, imagined it echoing through the entire city. Knowing that she must stop it now — stop it before she lost everything without ever having had it. How… how do I stop them? like a prayer, pressing her hand to the sign at her throat. The sibyl sign…
“People of Tiamat, children of the Sea!” She reached up, pulling at the neck of her clothing, to bare the trefoil tattoo. “I am a sibyl! See my sign — I serve the Lady faithfully and truthfully. My name is Moon Dawntreader Summer, and I will do the same as your Queen. The keeper of all wisdom speaks through me, but only to you. Ask and I shall answer, and I will never speak falsely.”
A hush fell, went on falling as the echoes died; all eyes throughout the city were on her throat, or on its image on some screen. The Winters were speechless with uncertainty, the Summers were speechless with reverence, at the undeniable proof of their Queen’s transmutation, the symbol of her rebirth and holy status. And from the corner of her eye Moon saw the strange look that passed over the faces of the off worlder officials in the viewing stands, to see that sign, below that face…
As she went on watching, her breath aching in her chest, she saw the look separating again into a natural spectrum of expressions: horrified amusement, fascination, disgust at the spectacle they had all just witnessed… but still a lingering unease and uncertainty. Nowhere among them did she see any guilt, any respect, any real understanding of what they had seen. Next time — next time whoever stands here will see those things.
Letting her gaze go on, she followed it, walking back toward her own place in the stands among the Summer elders. Sparks stood waiting in the place reserved for her consort; his flaming hair was a beacon to sign her place… his face was tight, like a drawn bow. She took her place silently beside him, looked away from the crowd again to the spot where branches drifted on the sea. The crowd still waited, murmuring and uncertain.
“They expect a few words from you, Lady.” One of the Goodventures who had been her ceremonial guides leaned toward her. She sensed a fog of unease among the Summers, too.
She nodded, wondering again, as she had wondered all through the mind-numbing song and celebration of the Mask Night, what the words would be that could make her people listen: How could one transform so many, and still keep their trust? But somehow, somewhere, there had to be the words…
The words came to her suddenly, not from the strange guardian of her mind, but from the strength of her own feeling. “People of Tiamat, the Lady has blessed me once, by giving me someone to share my life with me.” She looked at Sparks beside her; her hand touched his, hanging cold and strengthless at his side. “She has blessed me twice, by making me a sibyl, and three times, by making me a Queen. Since yesterday I have thought a great deal about my destiny, and this world’s, which all of us will share. I’ve prayed that She will show me the way to do Her will and be Her living symbol. And She has answered me.” In a way that I never dreamed She could. Moon glanced toward the sea, and the secret that lay beneath the dark waters.
“I know there is a reason why She has shown herself to you as a sibyl, through me. I don’t know yet the full pattern of the future, but I know that to create it fully I must have help — help from all of you, and especially from other sibyls. Summer has come to Carbuncle, and this city is no longer closed to sibyls — more than anyone, more than anyone can know, sibyls belong here! Islanders, when you go back to your homes, ask your sibyls to make the journey here if they can — not to stay, but to come to me and learn their part in the future’s design.”