Festival Moon

  MEROVIN—

  THE WORLD THAT C.J. CHERRYH BUILT!

  It all began with ANGEL WITH THE SWORD, C.J. Cherryh's acclaimed novel about the world of Merovin and the people, abandoned Terran colonists, who dwelt in the canal city of Merovingen. So real did Merovingen seem, so filled with life and adventurous possibility, that it fired the imaginations of many of C.J.'s fellow writers. And so this series, MEROVINGEN NIGHTS, was born.

  So welcome now to FESTIVAL MOON, the first volume of MEROVINGEN NIGHTS tales. And join C.J. Cherryh, Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey, Janet and Chris Morris, and other top writers as they set their own characters loose to pole the dark waterways and prowl the high bridges, form unexpected alliances, fight battles for survival and mastery, and pit their cunning and quickness against one another and against the many perils of that most dangerous and intricate of cities—Merovingen.

  C.J. CHERRYH invites you to enter the world of MEROVINGEN NIGHTS!

  ANGEL WITH THE SWORD by C.J. Cherryh

  A Merovingen Nights novel

  FESTIVAL MOON edited by C.J. Cherryh

  (stories by CJ. Cherryh, Leslie Fish, Robert Lynn Asprin, Nancy Asire, Mercedes R. Lackey, Janet and Chris Morris, Lynn Abbey)

  FEVER SEASON edited by C.J. Cherryh*

  *forthcoming from DAW Books in Fall 1987.

  Title

  C. J. CHERRYH

  FESTIVAL MOON Copyright © 1987 by C.J. Cherryh.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Tim Hildebrandt.

  Maps by Pat Tobin.

  "Festival Moon" Copyright © 1987 by C.J. Cherryh.

  "First Night Cruise" Copyright © 1987 by Leslie Fish.

  "Two Gentlemen of the Trade" Copyright © 1987 by Robert Lynn Asprin.

  "Cat's Taie" Copyright © 1987 by Nancy Asire.

  "Deathangel" Copyright © 1987 by Mercedes R. Lackey.

  "Sword Play" Copyright © 1987 by Janet and Chris Morris.

  "First-Bath" Copyright © 1987 by Lynn Abbey.

  "Night Action" Copyright © 1987 by Chris Morris.

  "Guardian" lyrics and music by Leslie Fish Copyright © 1983.

  "Black Water (Suicide)" lyrics by Mercedes R. Lackey, music by

  C.J. Cherryh Copyright © 1986.

  "Private Conversation" lyrics bv Mercedes R. Lackey, music by

  C.J. Cherryh Copyright © 1986/

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is stricdy coincidental.

  "Merovingen Nights, Merovin, The Signeury, The Det, Moghi'S Tavern" are registered trademarks belonging to C.J. Cherryh.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 704.

  First Printing, April 1987

  123456789

  printed in the u.s.a.

  Map

  FESTIVAL MOON

  C.J. Cherryh

  There was solemn celebration coming to Merovingen, the 24th of Harvest. The greater bridges all up and down the webwork of canals were already decked with the red and gray ribbons of the Festival of the Scouring, and solemn and somber banners already hung from windows on the greater and the lesser Isles (of which there were one hundred forty and nine in sinking Merovingen, in this city of wood and spires and lofty bridges and dark tangled waterways) —for on 24 Harvest six hundred years ago, fire had cut through the skies, the alien sharrh had scoured the world they had reclaimed from human government, and as inexplicably departed, leaving human survivors.

  That was the beginning of Merovingen on its canals, from spaceport (sunken, the domain of crazies) to wooden city of bridges; and the world had seen six hundred forty-odd such solemn commemorations of the attack since. The world muddled along, thank you, in spite of the sharrh (who might return) and the rest of humanity (who never returned). It was modest (it could build tech, but who could say whether the sharrh might not be provoked again should humanity get ambitious). It waited for the Retribution, when victorious humankind would sweep down from the stars, put the sharrh to rout and gather up its forgotten brothers and sisters of Merovin to fly to the technological paradise of human territories.

  So Adventists believed. The 24 Harvest reminded the devout of this hope of deliverance; and even the most relapsed Adventist turned at this season to contemplate his connections with the starfaring Ancestors, and to wonder whether the golden Angel who stood on Hanging Bridge had advanced his sword any further from its sheath—for the Angel RETRIBUTION stood guard and sentinel over the world of Merovin and especially Merovingen, and reminded humankind in their workaday business, that elsewhere humankind flew free among the stars and dreaded nothing.

  Revenantists had other opinions: the great Isle of the Revenant College up on Archangel Canal was hung with banners too in this predominantly Revenantist city, banners which reminded Revenantists of every degree that they were justly damned and doomed to Merovin for the sins of their Ancestors, and that only virtue and pious acts and the purchase of appropriate posthumous rites would ensure a rebirth to a wealthier life on Merovin, or even to a rebirth (it was every devout Revenantist's golden dream) somewhere on a free human world far from Merovin and sharrh, a world where the virtuous were reborn forever in glorious cities enriched by humanity's inventive genius—where electrics were a universal birthright and from which great spacefaring ships launched out among the stars. The Angel of Merovingen proclaimed, to Revenantists, not so much the Retribution, which hope Revenantists did not entirely deny in the long term, but the stability of the world and the order: the name of the Angel, Revenantists said, was MICHAEL, and his sword was half-drawn, half-sheathed, signifying the potential of destruction and renewal, the sword alternately advancing from its sheath and returning according as the weight of good and evil in the world tipped one way or the other. As long as the Angel stood on that span, Merovingen would survive its quakes, its floods, its seasonal storms. And the Retribution if it came, when that sword should fly from its sheath with lightnings and terror, would come when the whole world had achieved righteousness and the last human soul had been reborn elsewhere.

  There were other ways of thinking on the matter, of course. Merovin had a multitude of cults and religions, from the Janes to the New Worlders; and even furtive sharrists, who looked for salvation by imitating the elusive, faceless aliens themselves. The very nature of the world was diversity. And this was, be it noted, the center of the world, oldest and first city—Merovingen of the sunlit towers and the dark waterways, where the great Det rolled down to the Sundance Sea; the city of two harbors (one living, one dead); the indomitable survivor of flood and Scouring and earthquake.

  That history was truly what Merovingians commemorated together on the 24 Harvest: the city's own many-minded persistence against adversity.

  The days leading up to the Festival were a prosperous time: the heart of the Festival was solemn, but the days before were riotous, frugality went the way of sobriety and the city banged drums and marched in processions and drank and slept-up with partners planned and unplanned. The abstinent sort of Revenantist was rare and the abstinent Adventist was non-existent.

  And if Altair Jones was a little more concerned with the barrels of beer she freighted to Moghi's Tavern on Ventani Isle, or to Cooper's over on Petri and Prosperity's on Turk, than with the current state of her Adventist soul or the nearness of the Retribution, well, she was seventeen (or sixteen, a canaler might forget a thing like that), she ran her own boat, and she was enjoying the best run of business she had ever had. Being sole owner of the blunt-bowed skip she poled about the winding waterways, and being nowadays respected in the Trade... well, at least canalers knew her name, the way they had known her mother's, and knew that that name meant fair dealing for fair dealing, and a deal of trouble when crossed.

&nbs
p; There were whispers, of course, that Jones had connections, connections which went right up to the great houses. But that was not a thing to bandy about. Canalers were a reticent lot; and the great families were even more so, and defended their business with money and poison. So no one talked aloud about Jones' unaccustomed and unexplained prosperity—how a ragged orphan of a skip-freighter who had always looked a little starved and no end desperate had suddenly turned up with a new sweater, new breeches, and a full tank of fuel and a can to spare.

  Jones smiled a great deal lately, the flash of white teeth in a brown, tanned face, startling sight to those who had known the sullen, knife-fingering Jones of hungrier days. She wore her battered river-runner's cap tilted back on her short, straight hair, she worked her skip solitary still, but with a cheerfulness which left discreet whispers in her wake among canalsiders; and left discreet little gestures and pursings of mouths behind her among canalers, who had languages more than one.

  On this particular evening she made a delivery to Moghi's at what on any ordinary evening would be closing-time; and walked up from the loading slip by Fish market Bridge Stairs, to Moghi's itself when she had done and the barrels were off down the back alley to Moghi's back door. Moghi's wooden porch, up a few steps, was lit with lanterns; the double doors were still wide open, the Festival customers coming and going to the polecats which were moored off that porch on the left like a school of black fish, and drunken, happy landers clumping off down the walk toward Hanging Bridge, some few not clumping along in wood-soled shoes, but having a reckless look of money about them. The black water of the Grand Canal lapped and danced with lantern lights out of Moghi's, and lights showed in windows high up on Bogar Isle and Fishmarket across the water. From Moghi's and elsewhere the tinny sounds of sithers and the deeper tones of gitars wafted out across the canal and echoed up against tall Fishmarket Bridge. It was her world. It stank and it rarely saw the sun or the stars because of the webby tangle of bridges which laced back and forth between the Isles at every opportunity. In night it was very black and in sunlight it was shadowed; and it smelled always of water and old wood and old rope and tar, and smelled of places like Moghi's, which drew her to its lantern-lit heart, amid other smells of sawdust on wooden floors, and the aromas of Hafiz' best beer and smuggled whiskey, and Jep's unnameable stew.

  Moghi also prospered, since the infamous day of the Poisoning. The tavern had, earlier in this new prosperity, suffered an influx of uptowners seeking thrills—till a young uptowner found one he had not expected, and they found him floating.

  Merovingen-below never changed. And the laws in hell never did.

  " 'Lo," she said to Jep, all the while her eye scanned the accustomed corner; and caught sight of an unlikely riverman, a tall man with fair skin, dark blue sweater, dark blue watch cap with pale blond hair curling out from under it. The man saw her; she gave a delighted wink and paid quick attention to Jep, who had his hand out for the tally sheet from Hafiz's and the count from the dockboys. She pulled both from her pocket, her own reckoning bold and clean and on real paper just like Hafiz'.

  "Feller's been real edgy," Jep said, and gave an unshaven grin. "You want ter settle 'im down, eh?"

  "Shut your mouth, Jep. Mark the damn sheet."

  "Hey," Jep said, and the grin was wicked. "You do 'er, all right." But he shut right up then, Moghi's office door being open and Moghi himself suddenly looming up in the doorway, as great a block of a man as jep was a lank graying wisp—Moghi was solid, even to his large gut; his jowls disappeared into a bull neck and that neck into shoulders that could heft a full barrel without a hook. Moghi was not one to smile, but there was halfway pleasantness in his dour snatch of the paper from Jep's hands—it must have been a good day.

  "Old Hafiz ain't tried to put off the old stuff on me, has he?"

  "Hey," Altair said, "is he going to try that with me?"

  "Huh." Moghi's jowls doubled and he hooked a thumb at Jep and Ali the sweep, who was hanging about with broom in hand and ears pricked. "Get back there and help with them barrels. I tend the bar.—Want your pay on the tab?" he asked Jones.

  "Yey, just gimme a silverbit, I got some supplies t'buy."

  Moghi fished into his pocket, flipped it her way and she snatched it deftly on the fly and favored him with a grin.

  "Thanks, Moghi." She walked back to the man at the table, back into the darkest corner Moghi owned.

  Mondragon, this man's name was. And his face when he looked at her was the Angel's face. Her heart always did a curious skip-beat when she met him, when she looked at him again and discovered it was not just memory, how fine he was. And her nothing but a canal-rat, born and bred; with the canals in her speech, a canaler's roll in her walk, and she was not that wonderful to look at, with her call used hands and her flat nose with that break in it a pole had made when she was twelve and first on her own with the skip. She was nothing special. He was. And he was hers. He looked up at her with the candlelight turning his skin to ivory and his hair to finest gold, and there was no finer or more wonderful man in all the governor's court.

  He kicked out the other chair for her. And Moghi's new boy was already bringing over two glasses of Hafiz' best whiskey. They lived high at Moghi's place, they did, on Mondragon's coin, which kept Moghi happy. And if that coin came from uptown and from places Moghi had no wish to know about, they did not burden him with explanations.

  Or with Mondragon's real business. In that, Mondragon was different than every other client Moghi had.

  Jones sat down and took the whiskey the boy set past her shoulder. She lifted it as Mondragon got his, and she sipped it with a sigh. The warmth spread from throat to stomach to weary legs and back and arms, and she felt a vast contentment, thinking of the upstairs room and a hot bath waiting. And him involved in both.

  "Heavy load tonight," she said, and sighed again, gazing into his eyes.

  Then the whiskey warmth gave way to a little prickle of warning. Mondragon had a worry-look.

  "I can't stay long," he said.

  "What d'ye mean, ye can't stay long?" Hurt welled up; Festival began tomorrow and it was a long-planned special night. But panic chased after the hurt, quickening her pulse. Mondragon's associations Were no dockside kind of trouble, that a barrelhook could deal with.

  "We'll talk about it." His eyes drifted in a gesture up, meaning: in the Room; and then centered on her again. "Business, Jones."

  She took another drink of the whiskey, a healthy one. Mondragon's sat untouched. "Damn—"

  "I'm sorry."

  "That ain't what I'm damning." The boy was back again, this time with two bowls of Jep's stew, and fresh bread on the side. She shut down and kept her face placidly pleasant while the boy served, went so far as to give Mondragon a smile with the mouth only, which was: You can damn well bet we got to talk about it; and: You'd better tell the truth.

  He gave a look back which was: Don't get in my way, Jones.

  And all the while the boy fussed about setting the bowls down unspilled and setting the bread down proper, and the spoons and the knives being just so, while Will the gitar-player over in the canalside corner launched into a lively clog. A handful of canalers shoved back chairs and went to dancing, barefoot as canalers worked, which nonsense evidently spread to the porch as well, a couple of canalsiders joining in with a thunderous whump of wooden shoes on the planks.

  Festival. Sober shopkeepers drunk as rivermen on a spree. Jones curled her bare toes and picked up a piece of bread, dipped it in the stew and munched the corner of it. There was a lump in her throat and a flatness about the taste. Across from her, Mondragon took up his spoon and ate a bite or two.

  "Are you mad?" he asked.

  "Hell, no, I ain't mad. Are-n't mad." Mondragon was teaching her uptown talk. She tried it to please him, though privately she knew what she would look like if ever Mondragon dressed her up in velvet and lace and took her on the high bridges to the fancy places he belonged in.

  But he wa
s so gentle and earnest about it: Teach me how to talk canalsider; I'll teach you uptown. At one of those moments in bed when she had no sense at all. He was always doing that to her. And because it was a bargain she had made, she kept trying, and feeling the fool.

  "Am't," she said now she had thought about the aren't. And frustration welled up in her which had nothing to do with lessons. "Dammit to hell. Are you in trouble?"

  "Nothing I can't handle," he said. "I figured I owed you more than a note. I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you."

  "I ain't worrying. Why should I worry?"

  He felt that slice along the skin, and flinched. His eyes flickered in that peculiar misery of a clever man constrained by secrecy not to argue, and she spooned stew into her mouth to save herself even looking at him.

  Man goes and breaks appointments.

  Break my damn arms hurrying to get here and what do I get?

  O Lord, what is it, Mondragon? What do I got to do to get the truth out of you? You'll lie to me, you got an eel's ways and you ain't got to tell me none of it, I know you too damn well, I do.

  "Stew's fine." She looked up in triumph, having landed on the word. "Isn't it?"

  "It's got eel in it."

  "Ain't either. Isn't. That's whitefish." "Eel."

  "You don't know whitefish from eel, you got no taste, lander."

  "Then Jep's done something odd with the white-fish." Mondragon broke off a bit of the black bread, dipped it daintily in the soup and ate the edge of it. Turned it, dipped again. Altair chewed away at her own mouthful and regarded the elegant procedure with fascination.

  He don't look like no canaler nor no riverman, either, does he now?

  Lord, what kind of trouble?

  "Isn't no uptown lady, is it?"

  "I swear."

  'Ummmmmnnnn." She mopped up the last of her stew and drank a mouthful of whiskey that made her eyes water. "Well, that makes me feel better. Y'know, if ever you want somebody uptown, you don't have to sneak around, all you got to do is say."