The Darkangel - The Pearl Of The Soul Of The World Part 11

If you should fall in, little messenger, they will make short work of you."

A vision filled Aeriel's mind of the treacherous mudlick rearing back to dump her into the teeming Mere for sheer sport.

She clutched tighter to the great toad's back.

"See me safe to the palace," she warned, "or you will answer to your mistress for it. I bear Ravenna's gift for her, more precious than my life."

The mudlick only laughed. Aeriel realized it could feel her shaking-for even without the dragons, she was terrified, and not just of the enchanted water, but of any water. She could not swim, and so clung to the mudlick with all her might. It swam steadily on. The great castle hove nearer, rising up from the Mere. These spires could be only the top, she thought in awe, only the tiniest tip of an enormous keep. The rest lay below the lake. Again the mudlick's booming chuckle.

"You thought it would all be underwater, didn't you? Used to be, not many years past. But it's grown so, she can't keep it all beneath the surface now."

One eye swiveled to look at her. Aeriel managed to glare back. As the mudlick brought her to the edge of the crystal keep, Aeriel scrambled off in relief onto a narrow terrace a few inches above the waterline. To her astonishment, she found that the ledge was cold, far colder than the mudlick's skin. Gla.s.s smooth, it was so chill the soles of her feet adhered to it.

Uneasily, she shifted from foot to foot. What stone, what jewel had been used to make this tower? The pearl upon her brow brightened, suffusing her with warmth.

"Well, little sorceress," boomed the mudlick, "I have brought you here. Now enter if you can."

With a final deep laugh, it sank from sight below the surface of the Mere. Nightshade was very late. From the tilt of the stars, she saw that it must be nearly Solstarrise. She shifted her feet once more to keep the soles from binding to the stone. If not for the pearl, she realized, the cold would have been unbearable. Gazing up at the blank, unbroken white walls of the palace, she began to walk along the landing, searching for a door.

She walked until she felt dizzy, her neck stiff, but she could find no window, no portal, no c.h.i.n.k or opening. At last she stopped, baffled and exhausted. Desperation ate at her. Somehow she must get in. She had not come all this way to be turned back now. Aeriel felt an odd stirring in the back of her mind, a low, almost unintelligible murmuring.

Place your hand against the stone, it seemed to whisper-so softly that in the next instant, she was not even sure it had spoken at all. Nevertheless, she placed one palm against the frigid surface, gingerly, lest it stick. Nothing happened. Frustration welled in her. She pressed harder, heedless now, throwing her whole weight against the keep. Open, she cried silently, angrily.

Let me in!

The stone surface beneath her hand abruptly vanished. Aeriel stumbled forward. Catching her balance, she spun around to behold the outer wall now parted in a broad archway. Pearllight gleamed on the clear, white crystal of the palace interior.

Aeriel touched the jewel upon her brow again, astonished. Even as she watched, the wall seamed soundlessly together once more, forestalling retreat.

She stood in a deserted hallway. Starlight filtered in through the crystalline walls. Despite the pearl's warmth, she was shivering hard. The fierce cold of the Witch's keep numbed her. Her breath came in gasps, swirling up in puffs like scentless smoke. Something told her she would be well enough as long as she kept moving. Though the pearl's power was great, it was subtle. She must not pause, must not rest. Aeriel started down the long, empty hall.

The walls around her were uneven but smooth, in some places nearly transparent. Sometimes she sensed she was pa.s.sing along the outer wall of the keep and what lay beyond was open sky. It must be nearing Solstarrise by now, she knew. Her breath, when she leaned closer, seeking to peer beyond the ripples, fogged the crystal stone. Once she brushed against it in pa.s.sing, and the dry cold adhered to her like something tacky and alive. She had to s.n.a.t.c.h her arm away.

Her path led mostly downward at first, so that after a time she was certain she had pa.s.sed below the waterline. The stone of the wall was clearer here. Beyond, the dark waters of the Mere moved sluggishly. A flock of hatchet-shaped swimming things darted past, their huge mouths gaping. Something long and grey slid after them, doubling back on itself. It snapped bladelike teeth at her. Aeriel jumped. Farther out, something much vaster circled, very black: one of the Witch's mereguints, a water dragon. Aeriel hastened on.

Journeying deeper, she pa.s.sed through mazes of corridors with faceted walls, each throwing her image back at her until she halted, baffled, scarcely able to tell where her own form ended and her reflection began. Always the pearl guided her onward and through. Once, at a juncture of two hallways, she sensed that if she had taken the other fork, it would have led inevitably down to where the captured duaroughs labored, deep in the palace bowels, beneath even the mud bottom of the Mere.

Many rooms flanked the corridor-all empty now. Unbidden, the pearl's sight revealed to her more than she wanted to know about the past of those deserted chambers. Here the Witch's black birds had flocked. There she had built her darkangels' wings, and in another, gilded their hearts with lead. The pearl observed the palace's memories with relentless dispa.s.sion. Shuddering, the pale girl covered her face with her hands. How could any mortal being have become so corrupt?

Could anyone capable of such evil ever be redeemed? What might the pearl of the soul of the world become in the hands of such a one?

And yet, she remembered the Ancient's words, she is my daughter still.

Aeriel came to a room which halted her. Without looking, she sensed what lay beyond the door: a siege as white as salt, such as a queen might sit enthroned upon. The pearl imparted to her a glimpse from the chamber's past: the young Irrylath, not yet a darkangel, brought to his knees before that siege. The silver chain encircling his wrist was grasped in the hand of the tall, seated woman before him. She leaned forward, her face bowed from view. Her other hand was a fist in the young man's hair.

Cruelly, she forced his head back, bending to whisper in his ear: "Yes, love. You will."

Aeriel cried out. The sound shivered down the length of the empty hall, rebounding and magnifying into a louder and louder shriek, until it seemed that not one voice but many screamed. Aeriel ducked, covering her ears. She had no idea of the context of that scene-what had happened before it or followed after-and little cared. Her attention remained fixed on the horror of a single point in time: of the young Irrylath defying his mistress, and the White Witch slowly, inexorably-relishing every moment of it-breaking him to her will.

Aeriel gasped for breath and bit off her cries.

"No," she told herself sternly. "No!"

That glimpse which the pearl had brought her came from the past. It was not happening now. Half breathless, she uncovered her ears and heard the many bladethin echoes dying.

"Love, " she whispered, remembering the lorelei's words to Irrylath. Shaking, Aeriel gazed around her at the cold, white walls. "Nothing in this frozen place has anything to do with love!"

Grimly, she padded forward. The path wound on and on, sometimes downward, sometimes level. Eventually, she began to travel upward again. It must be long past Solstarrise, she realized, no longer night outside. No inkling of dawn had reached her before, but the light was much brighter since she had once more risen above the dark waterline. She had the sense of being far higher now than when she had entered the palace.

"How long have I been wandering here?" she wondered.

A broad, straight corridor stretched before her. She halted, trembling, dimly aware suddenly of what lay ahead of her and not wanting to go on. She stood a long time, reaching out through the senses of the pearl, trying desperately to find another path-to no avail. Here lay the only path. Aeriel drew a ragged breath.

Quickly, she forced herself ahead down the long corridor. Human figures stood embedded in the walls on either side of her. None of them moved. Still as stone every one, caught fast in the indescribably cold crystal. Their eyes were all closed, all their limbs and faces frozen in att.i.tudes of horror, struggle, revulsion, and despair. And yet, even so, the pearl told her, they were alive. Were they even physical bodies at all, or were they souls-captured by the Witch and her darkangels but not yet devoured? Unnerved, Aeriel ran on.

The corridor ended in an open archway. A blaze of Solstarlight lay beyond. She saw a window, unshuttered, unglazed.

The wind blowing in off the Waste was stiff, made thin by alt.i.tude. Panting, her breath swirling in clouds, Aeriel halted in the wash of sunlight streaming in. Its warmth felt delicious. She savored it. The lateness of the hour outside dismayed her: Solstar hung low. She had entered the Witch's keep before dawn.

"There you are," said a cold, clear voice. It rang like crystal, like a bell. Like a darkangel's voice: rich, compelling, clear.

"At last. Well. Through my palace of Winterock, it is not always easy to find one's way."

Aeriel could not tell if the word named the palace itself or the frigid stone from which it was formed. The speaker laughed, deeply, languidly.

"But I never doubted you would find me, little sorceress."

ELEVEN.

Heart of Dust

The chill that poured through Aeriel as she listened to that voice vanquished the warmth of Solstar. Turning, she saw the White Witch standing not far from the cas.e.m.e.nt: her vantage from which to watch the coming battle, Aeriel guessed. Across the small chamber, Oriencor appraised her coolly. She was very tall, almost as tall as Ravenna, but whereas the Ancient had been a dark lady, all dusk and black and indigo, her daughter the White Witch was fair.

Her skin was as pale as Irrylath's had been when Aeriel had known him as a darkangel: bone white without any rose to the cheeks or lips, no blush of blood. Her frigid breath did not cloud the air. Her features were sharp and angular, coldly beautiful, like a merciless statue. Only her eyes had any color, pale green. A sorceress's eyes. The Witch's hair was long and white, straighter than Ravenna's. Colorless filament. Darkangel hair.

Her lips were thin, bowed, curling upward at the corners in malevolent amus.e.m.e.nt. She was wearing a long white gown that fell close about her figure, clinging to it. It was sewn with little bits of things: dogs' teeth, cut diamonds, and freshwater pearls-twisted and baroque in shape, not round. Cats' claws and b.u.t.tons of bone. Aeriel could not see the lorelei's feet. Her gown dragged the floor. Her white nails were very long and keen. Before her Aeriel felt stupid, clumsy, weak -as though the other could, with but a glance, read her to the heart.

Shivering, she answered, "I am not a sorceress."

The White Witch smiled. Her teeth were pointed, sharp as little spades.

"Perhaps not," she said, drawing nearer. The cold breathed from her as from a high mountainside in shadow. "But you have been a great difficulty to me. And you have lately visited my mother in NuRavenna. Tell me, is she well?"

"She's dead," said Aeriel, shaking, refusing to retreat.

She remembered vividly-the last breath of the Andentlady fading and the dark man bending his grief-stricken face to her hair. Ravenna's fair daughter laughed, wholly self-possessed, a bell-like, mocking sound.

"You are so earnest," she sighed. "I should not play with you. I know that she is dead. I saw the beacon of her funeral fire."

Aeriel stared at her. The coldness with which the other spoke astonished her. One swansdown eyebrow lifted.

"Do I shock you, little Aeriel, rejoicing in my own mother's death?"

Aeriel saw that one of the trinkets st.i.tched to her gown was the mummified foot of some very small white creature: a lizard, a mole? Oriencor clenched one dagger-nailed hand. Her fingers were webbed, Aeriel realized suddenly. Gills slitted behind her ears.

"Fool. She could have made herself immortal, like me-if she had dared. Now her own mortality has claimed her at last, and the world is mine."

She spoke with such unflinching authority that Aeriel's hand went to the jewel at her brow, seeking rea.s.surance-then froze there as the lorelei fastened her gla.s.s-green gaze upon the pearl.

"My mother gave you a gift, I see."

Terror swept through Aeriel as she realized that very soon she must give up the pearl. She had worn Ravenna's jewel so long she had almost forgotten existence without it. And yet, she told herself sternly, the pearl did not belong to her. It was meant for the world's heir. Still, the thought of parting with it was agony.

"A boon," she managed at last.

"A message capsule, by the look," the Witch remarked, as though not greatly interested. "After all these years, what could my mother possibly have to say to me?"

Aeriel shook her head. How to explain? Where to begin? She found her tongue growing thick and awkward in her mouth.

Touching the pearl still, she could only manage, "Ravenna bade me bring it to you."

Oriencor shrugged. "How charming. But you keep it awhile, little sorceress, lest the cold kill you too soon. Time enough for me to savor my mother's dying breath after the battle." She smiled her wolfish smile. "After I've slaughtered all your people and devoured their souls."

Aeriel's knees grew weak. The other's voice was at once lovely and terrible, seductive to listen to. Aeriel felt the moment-her chance to confront and persuade the Witch-slipping away. She drew breath to make some desperate last appeal-but a soft, inner voice intervened. Let it go, the voice murmured, already fading. Now is not the time. Not yet, but soon.

"Come," the lorelei said. "Watch the battle with me. It is about to be joined."

She beckoned Aeriel to a window. The sill there dripped with water in the sunlight's blaze."See them below us," Oriencor murmured. "Your forces and mine. All a.s.sembled. All arrayed. The victory will be mine, of course. It will be a pleasure to watch. I know so few pleasures these days. Watch with me."

Aeriel saw armies on the strand below. The small chamber in which she and Oriencor stood was indeed at a great height.

The Witch's brood were ma.s.sed upon the sh.o.r.e: jackals and weaselhounds and black birds; great, hunched creatures of vaguely human shape; and thin, wraithlike figures-rank upon rank of them, so many she could not count. The black waters of the Mere behind them teemed with more. Aeriel spotted the mudlick, bobbing near sh.o.r.e, and deeper out, circling the palace, the two enormous wakes of the Witch's water dragons.

Syllva's forces faced the Mere, fanned out in a crescent. Aeriel's heart lifted at the sight of them -only to tighten suddenly as, for the first time, she perceived how pitifully small their numbers were in comparison to the Witch's vast horde. Above the allied warhost, a long yellow banner turned and fluttered on the breeze. The Lady stood foremost, surrounded by her bowwomen. Irrylath rode nearby, astride the winged Avarclon. Marelon, the Lithe Serpent of the Sea-of-Dust, undulated huge and vermilion, her vast coils lost among the throng. Erin stood farther back, the lyon Pendarlon pacing beside her. Aeriel saw the dark girl touch his mane. Beside her at the windowsill, Oriencor stirred.

"You have all been such a trial to me these last few dozen daymonths," she sighed, "resisting my conquest, refusing to acquiesce. I suppose I must be grateful, though: you a.s.suaged my boredom."

Aeriel turned to see her gazing down hungrily at the prince of Avaric very far below. The White Witch smiled.

"Irrylath was the best. He was never boring. All of six years old when I procured him-too old, really, to ever come completely to heel. But that is why I loved him so. So independent! So surprising. It took me years to tame him."

A hot flame of anger rose in Aeriel. For a moment, it rivaled the warmth of the pearl. She remembered the brief glimpse the pearl had shown her: Oriencor, one fist in the young Irrylath's hair, commanding him ever so quietly, Yes, love. You will.

Recklessly, Aeriel drew breath again to speak, but the other's merciless eyes turned and fixed her like a hawk's.

"I will never forgive you for taking him from me," the White Witch breathed, "even for a little time. And I will have him back again. Before I drink his soul away, he will be mine."

Aeriel's skin flushed. "He will never belong to you again," she gasped. "He's mine. He loathes you."

Oriencor laughed. "He loves me. And I him."

"You don't," spat Aeriel. "You only want to rule him!" Memory of the lorelei's black birds tormenting her prisoners came back to Aeriel. She shuddered, sickened, and shoved the thought away. "You and your kind don't love anything. I don't think you can."

The Witch's smile soured. Her voice grew petulant, annoyed. "I loved the Ancients once," she murmured, "when I was young. I was capable of love then. But they left me."

Leaning back against the sill, studying Aeriel, Oriencor toyed with the low collar of her gown, stroking her own breastbone. Slowly, Aeriel realized what it was she fingered: a little seam running down, sewn up with silver, just like the one on Irrylath's breast when he had been a darkangel. Oriencor's bloodless lips pursed fretfully.

"It's true," she mused. "I can't love. I don't have a heart of flesh anymore. I took it out, after the Ancients deserted me, and replaced it with one of winterock."

She glanced over one shoulder. Aeriel followed her gaze. A crystal box rested in a niche across the room.

"I put the original away for safekeeping."

Warily, Aeriel eyed the box. Something dark lay inside, dimly visible through the colorless stone. Oriencor shrugged.

"You may look at it, if you wish."

The pearl burned bright upon her brow. Aeriel felt an irresistible attraction drawing her to the box. Slowly, she crossed the room and touched the lid. The crystal was bone chill: cold as the keep.

"Don't think you can harm it," the lorelei warned, still at the windowsill. "I'd never let you near it, if you could do it any harm."

Aeriel felt a stirring within the pearl, like something just beginning to wake-but it subsided at once. She lifted the box's lid and halted, frowning. Nothing lay within the box but a layer of fine, dark grit. Immediately, the pearl brightened.

"There's nothing in here," she said. "Nothing but dust."

Scowling, Ravenna's daughter bit her lip with one pointed tooth. "Won't you lie to flatter me, little sorceress?" she inquired.

"Aren't you afraid of me yet?"

Aeriel turned to face her. "I'm very much afraid of you," she answered. No use to pretend otherwise. The Ancient's daughter could read her with such ease. Still biting her lip, the White Witch smiled.

"So was Irrylath. And he said the same."

Despite the other's eyes upon her, Aeriel felt her own gaze, very gently, being directed once more to the fine sooty stuff in the bottom of the box, like ashes of the dead. Widun the pearl, something shifted again. She reached to touch the ash. It was cool and clung together like barely damp meal. Ravenna's pearl glowed. A strange, soft murmuring came into the back of Aeriel's mind. She tried to listen, but Oriencor's muttered words drowned it out.

"All the others told me what a fine heart it was, how beautifully preserved. They thought to please me. Irrylath told me it was only wormwood. It's why he was my favorite. Of all the boys I ever made into darkangels, only Irrylath never lied."