worlder And he merely had to be the best. Starbuck's anonymity was assured by ritual and law; he existed above and beyond all authority, all retribution except the Queen's.
Starbuck turned, gazing over the rim of his drink at the incongruous clothing laid out on a shelf along the mirrored wall by the mirrored door: the calculated black silk and leather of his formal court attire, and the traditional hooded helmet that masked his real identity, that made Herne interchangeable with a dozen other ruthless and power-hungry predecessors. The helmet crested in a set of curving, steely spines like the antlers of a stag — the symbol of all the arrogant power any man could ever want to wield, or so he had thought when he first settled it onto his head. Only later had he come to realize that it belonged to a woman, and so did the real power — and so did he.
He sat down suddenly on the turned-back covers of the long bed; watched his endless reflections in the walls mimic him mindlessly into infinity. Seeing the rest of his life? He frowned, pushing the image away, running a hand through the thick black curls of his hair. He had been Starbuck for better than ten years now, and he was determined to go on being Starbuck ... until the Change. He wielded power and enjoyed it, and it had never mattered to what end, or where the real source of the power lay.
Didn't matter? He looked down at the heavy strength of his arms, his body still hard and youthful, thanks to privilege. And the butchering of mers ... No, the slaughter didn't matter at all, as an end it was only the means to a greater end. But the source, yes, that mattered. She mattered — Arienrhod. All the things that had the power to move him were hers — beauty, wealth, absolute control eternal youth. In the first moment he had seen her at audience in the palace, with her former Starbuck at her side, he had known that he would kill to possess her, to be possessed by her. He imagined her body moving against his own, the bridal veil of her hair, the red jewel of her bitter mouth ... tasting power and privilege and passion incarnate.
And so it did not strike him as incongruous that he moved unthinkingly from the bed to his knee, as the door opened and made the vision reality.
Chapter 3
'... The time of Change is upon us! The Summer Star lights our way to salvation...'
Moon stood hugging herself on the dock in the shrouded dawn, shivering with a chill born of cold mist and misery. The breath she had held in until she ached puffed white as she exhaled, dissipated into the gray fog breath of the sea like a spirit, like an escaping soul. I will not cry. She wiped at her cheek.
'We must prepare for the End, and the new Beginning!'
She turned, looking back past Gran along the fog-wrapped tunnel of the pier as the insane old man's roaring broke like a wave over the sand castle of her self-control. 'Oh, shut up, you crazy old ...' She muttered it, her voice quivering with the helpless frustration that made her want to scream it. Gran glanced over at her, sharp sympathy etched on her weather-worn face. Moon looked away, ashamed at feeling resentful, resentful at having to feel ashamed. A sibyl didn't say those things; a sibyl was wisdom and strength and compassion. She frowned. I'm not a sibyl yet.
'We must cast out the Evil Ones from among us — we must throw their idols into the Sea.' Daft Naimy threw his arms up, shaking fists at the smothered sky; she watched the ragged sleeves of his stained robe tumble back. Dogs barked and bayed around him, keeping a cautious distance. He called himself the Summer Prophet, and he roamed from island to island across the sea, preaching the word of the Lady as he heard it, distorted by the echoing of divine madness. When she was a child she had feared him, until her mother had told her not to; and laughed at him, until her grandmother had told her not to; and been embarrassed by him, until her own growing understanding had taught her to endure him. Only today her endurance was already tried beyond all reason ... and I'm not a sibyl yet!
She had heard that Daft Naimy had been born a Whiter. She had heard that he had once been a tech-loving unbeliever ... that he had scorned natural law by shedding the blood of a sibyl. That he had been driven mad by the Lady as punishment; that this was how he served his penance. The trefoil symbol the sibyls wore was a warning against defilement, against trepass on sacred ground. They said it was death to kill a sibyl, death to love a sibyl, death to be a sibyl... and they meant a living death. Death to kill a sibyl...
'There is the Sinner who worships false gods! See him!' The gnarled hand flew out like an accusing arrow.
Sparks's face rose up past the end of the pier into its line of flight as he climbed the laddered gangway. His face hardened over with hateful resolution as his eyes focused on the old man in the distance, and then on her own face. Death to love a sibyl...
Moon shook her head in denial, answering another unspoken accusation. But his eyes were gone from her again, looking at Gran instead; showing her with that look all the things she had loved, and was losing. At last she understood what they meant when they said that it was death to be a sibyl.
'But I'm not a sibyl yet.' The whisper caught on her teeth.
Someone called up to Sparks from below; he threw back an answer before he came toward them, tall and pale and determined. The tide was ebbing; the water of the bay lay far below the pier. All she could see from here of the Winter trader's ship that would take him away was the tip of its mast, like a beckoning finger. 'Well, I guess that's about it. All my things are on board; they're ready to sail.' He looked down at his feet as he stopped before them, suddenly awkward. He spoke only to Gran. 'I guess — I guess I'm saying goodbye.'
'Prepare for the End!'
'Sparks ...' Gran put out a hand, reached up to brush his cheek. 'Must you go now? At least wait until your Aunt Lelark gets back from sea.'
'I can't.' He shook his head against the touch. 'I can't. I have to go now. I mean, it's not forever—' as if he were afraid that if he waited, tomorrow could become forever too easily.
'Oh, my beloved child ... my beloved children.' She stretched her other arm stiffly, brought them both together in her embrace, as she had done since time past remembering. 'What will I do without you? You've been all my comfort, since your grandfather died... Must I lose you now, and lose you both at once? I know Moon has to go, but—'
'Repent, sinner!'
Moon felt the tightening of Spark's mouth more than she saw it, as his head came up and he glared at Daft Naimy. 'Her destiny's been calling her all her life — and so's mine, Gran. I just didn't know they'd lead us separate ways.' His hand pressed his off world medal like a pledge; he pulled away from them.
'But to Carbuncle!' more like an oath than a protest. Gran shook her head.
'It's only a place.' He grinned, gripped her scarf-wrapped shoulder in reassurance. 'My mother went there; and she came back with me. Who knows what I'll come back with. Or who.'
Moon turned away, clutching the sleeves of her parka as though she were strangling something. You can't do this to me! She moved to the edge of the pier, looked over the rail and down along the sheer, sea weedy face of the stone-built jetty, at the trader's ship rocking patiently far below. She took a long breath of damp-heavy air, and another, sucking in the harbor smells of seaweed and fish and salt-soaked wood ... listening to the murmur of voices below, the creak and slap and whisper of the moorage in the restless tide. So that she wouldn't hear' Your world is coming to an End!'
'Good-bye, Gran,' his voice muffled by an embrace.
Suddenly all that she saw and heard, that was so terribly familiar, took on an overlay of alien ness as though she saw it all for the first time ... knowing that it was not reality, but her own perception that had changed. Two saltwater tears slipped down the sides of her nose, and fell thirty feet into the bay. She heard him pass behind her toward the gangway without slowing.
'Sparks!' She turned, putting herself in his way. 'Without a word ... ?'
Sparks backed up slightly.
'It's all right.' She straightened her face, managed with some pride to speak as though it were. 'I'm not a sibyl yet.'
'No. I know. That wasn't why—' He broke off, pushing back his knitted cap.
'But it is why you're leaving.' She couldn't tell, herself, whether that was a statement or an
