The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge Read Free Book Online Page A

with creating. Her strength of will had always been as
much a part of her, and as unquestioned in her mind, as the strength of her
body. It had not been easy, sometimes, loving her, when her stubbornness had
collided with his own quick temper. But their making-up had always been sweet,
back in Summer .... “I love you,” he murmured. He put his arms around her,
feeling the shadows of lost time fall away as he held her close. She kissed his
mouth, her eyes closed; her eyelids were a fragile lavender.
    “What were you doing here?” He nodded at the throne as their
lips parted; half afraid to ask, but asking anyway.
    She shook her head, as if she was not certain either. “I
wanted to know ... how it felt when she was Queen.” Arienrhod. “Today ... today
I was truly the Lady, Sparkie.” Unthinkingly, she used his childhood nickname.
But there was nothing of childhood in her voice, and suddenly he felt cold.
    The Lady is nol the Queen. He didn’t say it, afraid of her response.
The Summer Queen was traditionally a symbolic ruler, representing the Sea
Mother to her people.
     
    But from the first ceremony Moon had led as the Lady, she
had broken with ritual and tradition. She had claimed that it was the Goddess’s
will, that this Change must begin a real change. He knew that she did not
believe in the Goddess anymore; not since she had learned the truth, that
sibyls were human computer ports, and not the Sea Mother’s chosen speakers of
wisdom. Sibyls existed on all the worlds of the Hegemony, and probably on all
the other worlds of the former Empire. They were speakers for the wisdom of an
artificial intelligence, not the Sea Mother. But Moon had told him the sibyl
mind spoke to her, not simply through her; that it had commanded her to bring
Tiamat the technological enlightenment that the Hegemony had denied it for so
long. He had found the idea as unbelievable as the idea of the Goddess now
seemed to him ... until he had watched her today in the Hall of Winds. “How did
you do it?” he asked, at last. “What you did today. How did you stop the wind?”
    She looked up at him, her eyes stricken and empty. “I had
to,” she said, her voice as thin as thread. “I had to, and so I did—” The
thread snapped.
    “Don’t you know how?” he whispered.
    She shook her head, looking down; but her fingers rose to the
sibyl sign at her throat. “Something inside me knew. It made me do it, to make
them believe me ....”
    His hands released her reflexively. She looked up at him,
her pale lashes beating, her agate-colored eyes full of sudden pain. He put his
arms around her again; but it was not the same. “Come back to bed,” he murmured
into her ear. “You should be resting.”
    “I can’t. I can’t rest.”
    “Let me hold you. I’ll help you ....” He led her down from
the dais; she clung to his hand, but her gaze still wandered the room, which
was lit as brightly as day. He followed her glance, looking across the
snowfield carpet; remembering Arienrhod’s courtiers scattered across it like
living jewels in their brilliant, rainbow colored clothing. Gossamer hangings
drifted down from the ceiling, decorated with countless tiny bells that still
chimed sweetly and intermittently as they were disturbed by random currents of
air.
    They left the throne room, entering the darkened upper halls
that were empty even of servants now. He was relieved to find himself alone
with her, jealous of these stolen moments. He had thought when they were
reunited at the Change that everything would change for them. And it had ...
but not the way he had wanted. Not back to what it had been. Moon was no longer
his alone, his innocent Summer love. And he would never again be the naive
island youth she had pledged her life to; Arienrhod had seen to that.
    He tried to lead her toward their room, but she shook her
head. “I don’t want to go back to bed. Walk with me. Show me the palace—show me
all the parts of it.”
    “What,