But as she neared the center of the span the catch-spell of the sibyl's song invaded her again, slowing her, lulling her fears, dulling her instinct for survival. No! She froze, letting her terror rise up and counterattack before the song could snare her mind again. But even as she stopped moving, she saw the Winters ahead all holding the same hollow fingers, raising them to their lips — whistles! To control the winds... And now at last she understood: They were turning the winds against her; this was how she would die, without a human hand shedding her blood.
Moon threw herself flat on the bridge span as the choir voice of the whistles collided and smashed her circle of quiet air. The winds swept over her, tearing at her. But in the middle of the wind lay the sibyl song — like the clear air hi a hurricane's eye, the clarity of a strange madness filling her mind. Hypnotized, paralyzed, she plunged through into a refuge that lay in some other plane of existence. .
Why? Why does it call me here? 'What's the answer?' she heard her own voice screaming wildly. 'What's the answer?' You can answer any question, except one, Elsevier had told her. Not What is Life?' not Is there a God? ... The one question she was forbidden to answer was Where is your source point And in this moment, teetering at the eternity's edge of insanity or death, she knew that at last it had been answered, that she had been chosen again by the power that lived in her mind: Sourcepoint, fountainhead, wellspring ... here, here, here! Below this shaft that plunged into the sea, below this pinpoint city driven into a map of time, as secret as stone beneath the guardian se asking of this water world, lay the sibyl machine. And she alone would know. She felt her mind give way under the final assault of knowledge, and fall into the well of truth; cried out as she felt her body lose control to follow it down...
Like a startled dreamer she came into herself again, lying on the bridge span, gasping loudly in the quiet air. The quiet air... She pressed her hand over her mouth, pushed up slowly onto her knees. There was no wind at all; only a peaceful stirring and sighing around her. The Winters stood gape-faced on the far edge of the abyss, then— whistles dangling from strengthless fingers. She dared to look away, past the wind curtains hanging slack hi a becalmed sea, to the storm walls beyond. The walls were closed, shutting off the flow of the cold crosswinds from the outer world, sealing off their only access to the well at Carbuncle's heart, and to her. She sank forward again, pressing her forehead against the surface of the span in silent gratitude.
She climbed unsteadily to her feet, made her way on across the bridge. She moved slowly, for the sake of the watchers, for the sake of her uncertain legs. The Winters' expressions mixed awe and terror now; she set her face hi grim defiance, willing them to let her pass.
And some fell back, but there were some who turned angrier, more hate-filled and reckless at the sight of a Summer wearing the face of then: Queen, wielding the power of a goddess. And among them she saw the iron pole crowned with a halo of metal thorns, the witch collar that had torn open Danaquil Lu's throat. The collar came forward to meet her and keep her from stepping off the bridge. 'Kneel down, sibyl, or go into the Pit!' The jewel- turba ned woman who held it thrust it at her; she took a step back, her hands knotting at her sides.
'Let me past or I'll—' As she spoke she saw them turn, heard the processing echoes of many footsteps coming down the entry corridor toward the hall. And as suddenly the crescent of space behind the nobles began to fill with human figures — but this time they wore homespun and kleeskin: Summers! Their faces were as murderous as any Whiter face had been until a second before; they carried knives and harpoons, and the faces looked at her, alone on the bridge, without changing.
'There she is! It's the Queen!'
Moon saw the one face that didn't belong with the rest, one man working his way forward among them with desperate determination.
'BZ!' She shouted over the rising noise as the mobs met, caught his searching gaze and felt it embrace her.
Gundhalinu elbowed aside a final Summer, making himself a space to draw his weapon and let the crowd see it clearly. 'Hold it! j, Hold it!' He jerked the thin-mouthed woman holding the spined collar half around and wrenched it out of her startled hands. He ' hurled it over the edge into the Pit. 'That's gone far enough, Winter. i Get back — clear away, all of you!'
'What right have you got to interfere with us, foreigner? This is Winter business, Whiter law—'
'That's for damn sure,' BZ muttered, his eyes coming back to Moon even as he cleared a path for her through the human wall. 'This woman's under arrest; she's mine.' Moon caught the wink of an eye in it, and smiled in spite of herself.
'That's the Queen, Inspector Gundhalinu!' one of the Summers said angrily. 'And she's ours. She's not going anywhere until the Change.' The words were as deadly as frost.
'She isn't Arienrhod. She's a Summer, a sibyl! Look at her throat.' BZ waved a hand. 'If you want Arienrhod, you'll have to cross that—' Following his own gesture, he looked out across the windless hall for the first time, and his face turned blank. 'What—?'
'What business do you have with our Queen, fish farmers?' The jewel-turba ned woman who had lost control when she lost the sibyl collar tried to take it back again. 'You're not welcome in this palace while it still belongs to Winter.'
'Your Queen has business with us!' a Summer shouted. 'She's trying to kill us all, and we've come to make sure she doesn't get away with it. And to make sure she goes down to the Lady for the third time.'
Moon listened without moving, overwhelmed with aching, irrelevant joy at hearing a voice speak with a Summer burr. 'I'm Moon Dawntreader Summer—' Her voice was in rags. 'The Queen is inside. Cross the bridge now! As long as I stand on it you'll be safe.' She waved them forward, felt BZ's astounded eyes on her.
The mob came more confidently as they saw her trefoil and put their trust in it. Her own belief wavered as the first of them joined her on the bridge; but the air lay resting, and the Summer smiled briefly and bent his head as he passed. One by one the others followed, treading nervously but driven by the furious need to reach their goal. Moon waited until the last Summer had stepped safely onto the ledge at the far side of the hall before she took the final steps onto solid ground. The Winters backed away, sullenly watching her and Gundhalinu. She turned as she reached his side, hearing a tremulous sigh behind her. She saw the storm walls open like languorous whig spreading, felt the chill winds rise again, the curtains shudder into life. The Pit groaned and stirred, reeking of the sea.
'Gods! Father of all my grandfathers,' BZ whispered. 'It was you, holding back the wind. How — how did you do it?' He kept distance between them.
'I can't tell you,' hugging herself. That it's Carbuncle. I can never tell anyone; never. 'I don't even know.' Must never let anyone know. She followed the Pit down in her mind, down, down to the sea and below it, into the timeless bedrock of the planet itself, where the ultimate receptacle of human wisdom lay in secret omniscience. 'Take me away from here, BZ. This is no place for a sibyl; the Winters are right. It's too dangerous.' She felt the hostile, disbelieving stares of the nobles crawl over her.
BZ led her from the Hall of the Winds with regulation propriety, back down the corridor past the scenes of Winter's reign. No one followed them. BZ still kept a small distance between them as they walked. Shaking out her mind, she picked through the dazzling fragments of her last hours for the terrible secret that had been uppermost until she stepped out onto the bridge: 'What were they doing here, the Summers? Did they tell you what Arienrhod—' who almost killed me; she was suddenly dizzy, 'what she had done?'
He shook his head, his concentration fixed on the motion of his feet. 'I couldn't make anything of it; they were in too much of a hurry. I don't think they even knew. All a mob needs is a crazy rumor.'
'It's not a rumor. It's true. And they won't stop it by holding her prisoner. She's hired off worlders to start a plague.' Moon threw the words out at him heedlessly.
'What?' He stopped, stopping her. 'How do you know — ?' breaking off as the possibilities registered.
'Sparks told me.'
'Sparks.' He looked down again, nodding to himself. 'So you found him, then. And it — you and he, still...'
'Yes.' Her hands locked in front of her.
'I see. Well.' He sagged against the wall, kept his face averted for a long moment, with his coughing as an excuse. She realized that his reluctance to touch her wasn't all because of what he had seen in the Hall of the Winds. 'He didn't come out with you.'
