8: Requiem For a Dream

  Fox y in a comfortable white bed with his head deep in white feather pillows, staring at a white ceiling. His face was wet. His heart thundered; the pillows seemed to smother him. He didn’t know where he was.

  In a bed, though. In a bed, wearing white fnnel pajamas he’d never seen before, which meant they—whoever they were—had seen his body. The careless interlopers who had vioted his peace without a care for the worlds’ safety had also seen every scar and piercing Fox possessed. Every hole, though he didn’t think anyone had used him yet. There was none of the soreness that was as familiar to him as sunrise.

  He’d been so close to escaping to fight another day, but now he couldn’t hear the music of any pnet. Long, intricately tooled cuffs of cutwork brass stretched from his wrists to the centers of his forearms: mage cuffs. Dampeners. When he’d examined them on waking, he’d seen the locks that held them on were trapped.

  Just one more thing he’d have to deal with. The first thing. He bumped it to the top of his mental list and pressed the heels of neatly manicured hands into his eyes.

  I can’t even cast a light.

  Eagle would come for him. Though he could survive alone and frightened—hadn’t he done so for years? —Fox felt the loss like a missing limb. They had spent more than a little time together, and Eagle had been the easiest thing to grow accustomed to, like a soft bnket three nights running. Without Eagle to see to Fox, without Fox to see to Eagle, what the hell were they meant to do? Fox would forget to eat. Eagle would change his socks twice a week at best.

  He dropped his hands to the duvet pulled chastely over him and took a few deep breaths, just as Eagle would tell him to. It didn’t help as much as it would have if Eagle were here, with gentle touches and soft looks.

  Whatever was waiting for him here, he would survive it. He would pass through it and have back what he’d won for himself once before.

  Whoever they were, they’d regret taking it from him.

  Everyone ought to have a chance to be free and in love. Fox had grown addicted to the lightness that had once seemed unbelievably, unbearably good.

  He sat up, wiping his temples, and took stock. The first thing: his stomach let out an insulted growl. The second thing: his surroundings were white as snow except for the tall bck panes all along the wall in front of him. They were set at knee height and stretched far overhead in what appeared to be white, seamless pstic; he suspected observation windows.

  Fox chewed the inside of his lip and scooted out of the wide bed, big enough for three or even four. He seemed to be in a single long corridor of room. One end was a reception area with white leather couches; the other end held a long white dining table. A long closet occupied the inside wall. A short dressing table sat tucked against the windows.

  To the other side of the bed’s head, there was an opening in the wall, through which he saw a strange basin, meant for sitting rather than squatting. There was no door.

  When he went into the bathroom—for bathroom it must be—he found a generous space, a wide mirror, and a jar of All-Heal among the ranks of lotions and potions.

  He gnashed his teeth and seized the All-Heal on his way out. At least no one needed to know about his attempts to remove the dampening bracers.

  The windows soared to a high, gently curving ceiling. The whole pce yawned above him. Wherever he was, he had been swallowed deep.

  Outside was bckness, but as his eyes adjusted to looking out, he made out pinpricks like stars. For a wild moment he thought he was deep in the Dreaming Sea all over again—but that couldn’t be. He stretched his hand out to touch the pane.

  It gave him a hard zap. He dropped the jar of All-Heal and reeled for a moment, since there was nowhere to steady himself. White carpet, pure white, just long and plush enough to be pleasant under his bare toes.

  Picking up the jar, Fox looked around for something to toss. If he could see the effect of an impact, perhaps he could work out what was in those panes. They looked fwlessly clear.

  He tossed the jar on the bed. It bounced into an untidy heap of white bnkets while he undid one of the earrings hanging from his ear. When he got the fat diamond detached, he lobbed it at the window.

  It bounced off with hardly any visible effect on the pane and no sound. There was a bit of a shimmer, though; he tried again and again, whipping the earring harder each time.

  At st, it rolled to his feet, as pristine as when he’d begun throwing it: the gold undamaged, the diamond untouched. He thought he had the measure of the panes. A force pne, or several of them, given the seamless mold of the room. Or perhaps one force field enveloping the whole of—something. Somewhere.

  He wished he could have probed outward with the connection that had so recently graced him. They stole that from me, too, he thought. And it was so easy for them.

  Fox paced toward the receiving area. If it was so easily taken away, maybe he had never deserved to be close to the Mountain in the first pce.

  His stomach pitched. Instead of thinking further, he ran his fingers along the shell-like wall, lifting them as he walked rather than touch any more of the panes. It really didn’t feel like pstic. He thought of a snake’s leathery eggshell, though the material seemed stiffer.

  The reception area was the two low tables—white—set with the bottles and gsses he would expect to see in his own bar caddies at home. A variety of games filled a dispy on the back wall, both familiar and not. Even the chess set was white and gray. The tables had a familiar arrangement of couches and chairs—white—around them.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose with the pads of his index fingers. “Fuck white. I hate white!” The st of it was a shout.

  The room ended in a splendid, egg-shaped arch, gorgeous in its simplicity, but no door where there ought to be one. Fox sat on the arm of the nearest deep leather sofa and clenched fists so tight his knuckles whitened to match.

  He rose and stalked clear to the back, buzzing with a million tiny bees. The room was much smaller than his tower prison. There were no books in evidence and lying at the head of the oval dining table, only a single, ughably small pad of paper with letterhead he couldn’t read. A white pen rested on top.

  To be free and in love, first one ought not to be imprisoned. Not again not again not again—

  He seized the pen and tried to shove it into the locking mechanism on one cuff. Electricity arced into him, but Fox was more than familiar with pain. He clenched his teeth and forced the pen in again, but with the same result.

  The barrel of the pen wouldn’t quite fit beneath the bracer. He could get the tip under it—frankly agonizing, since electricity nced through him again—but nothing more. He dashed the pen to the ground. Anger rose higher like a threatening wave, blotting his vision. If he could have felt anything at all from his aura, he would have been swollen with heat and power. Look what they’ve done to me! Look what I let them do to me!

  The force panes (force field? He would need to know for sure) came all the way around to end the room in a sweeping curve. He opened a cabinet just at the end of the back wall. Snacks of just the sort Eagle had on hand at all times—slices of apple, nuts, bits of cheese—greeted his eyes. Sandwiches lined one shelf.

  Fox knew they wouldn’t taste half as good as Eagle’s. There was some kind of magic in the sandwiches Eagle made; he had tested them again and again, secretly, and found none, but he was sure of it.

  He smmed the door, swearing bitterly. It bounced back open and sent wrapped sandwiches cascading over his bare feet.

  In a fit of childishness, Fox stomped them all into pristine white carpet. Things, things—there were always more things. There was only one Eagle.

  When he stood over the mess with disgusting feet, there was the softest of rushes into the quiet.

  Fox’s body seized with arm. He must maintain his composure in front of these people, and here he was with tuna sad all over his feet and fresh tears on his face. He hadn’t realized he wept. He turned aside and swiped the sleeve of the pin fnnel pajamas across his face.

  Several uniformed men and women marched through a hole beneath the arch at the other end. They all wore head to toe bck: ordinary, loosely cut wool tunics and ordinary trousers just like the soldiers, but without medals. They had ordinary shoes, if very polished. More and more piled into the room, until a round dozen had arrived. They lined up in front of him, one as like the next as the other. From vaguely serpentine, almost Movanar faces with short knife bde ears, they assessed him.

  Fox swallowed under the regard, terribly aware of how his feet squashed on the carpet as he advanced a pace. He remembered a gathering very like this one but filled with different faces.

  He had freed himself from Father. He could do this, too; when Eagle came, as surely he must, Fox would be ready for him. “Good evening, dies and gentlemen. What can I do for you?” What must I do for you?

  “Rev Liedan, I hope you find your accommodations to your liking.” The woman who spoke up had an unctuous, rich voice. He tried to mark her some other way, but on her ordinary face there was nothing to set her apart. There were no ribbons on her chest, but none of the others had any either.

  He controlled his bark of ughter to something more like a chuckle. “I find I vastly prefer the accommodations I choose for myself. Is there anything more to say?”

  They made surprised little sounds, looking back and forth at one another.

  Fox ran his hands back over his hair. He wished he knew how to pray; he’d pray for patience. “Let’s get on with it. What do you want me to do?”

  The woman with the unctuous voice cleared her throat. She stood third from the left. There was nothing else to pin her apart as different from the rest. “Rev Liedan, there is to be a cocktail party. We are to assist you in preparing.”

  “I see.” If he squinted, they could be any of the Movanar at home, the ones who had anointed him with sweet oils and made him a delight to see, to touch, to taste. He was used to this—had been used to it, but none of them remained on his bedchamber staff. For a year now, only Eagle had seen to him, when he needed help at all. “Let’s get on with it, please—or will I repeat myself yet again and have you stare at me like a calf with an extra head?”

  “Hmm. Certainly, Rev Liedan.” They surrounded him and nudged him, ever so subtly, into the bathroom. He made himself submit, made himself into the perfect doll as they washed and perfumed him. He sat in the soft white chair in front of a huge, perfect mirror and let them style his hair, combing it slick and wavy with pomade, and applied subtle cosmetics to eyes, cheekbones, mouth. He could have done it all for himself, and more quickly.

  He stood in front of the mirror and allowed them to dress him in a silk shirt, then a high-waisted white suit of rough twill with a lovely—even he had to admit it—subtle directional stripe pattern. The tight cuffs snagged on the bracers he already wore. Suppressing a sigh, he took jewelry from Unctuous’s hands: rings, a fat sparkling brooch in the shape of a fox, and a pocket watch on a stunning twined-vine gold chain.

  When it was over, Fox looked quite like himself, except for the short hair—and the hat. They gave him a white gambler with a white band, a diamond pin sticking out of it.

  There was a full-length mirror inside the wardrobe. Fox stared at himself in it with intense loathing. From white hat to white bow tie to white shoes, he looked stunning. He hated it with the terrible sore spite of someone who’d had everything he wanted and lost it.

  He adjusted the hat to lie more rakishly on his head. “I’m ready.”