"My gargoyles," she cried.
Greyling and Catwing bounded toward her down the slope, their strangely jointed limbs flexing and buckling, their skeletal bodies moving with an eerie grace. The other figure held off, mincing skittishly, a nest of horns upon its head.
"Mooncalf," Aeriel called to it. "Mooncalf."
Then Greyling and Catwing were upon her, panting and rolling and nipping each other.
Aeriel knelt, ran her hands along their bony hides. They yipped and whined. Dry blood was on the grey-ling's lip, on one of the catwing's paws. Aeriel halted suddenly.
"What have you done?" she whispered, taking the greyling's head into her hands, and then the catwing's paw. "What have you done?"
The blood was old and not their own.
"They have brought us a mount," cried Roshka. He whistled.
Aeriel looked up and saw the mooncalf descending the slope, herding before it a tall black horse, saddled and bridled, but riderless. It whinnied at the prince's cry.
"Nightwalker!" The mooncalf skittered away, but the suzerain's mount came on, nuzzled the prince. He stroked the long crest of its neck. "Nightwalker. My father's steed."
"Mooncalf," said Aeriel again, softly.
Erin stroked the other two, picked the blood from their fur. The mooncalf came nearer, approaching at last. It touched its grey nose to Aeriel. Roshka took the bit and bridle from the horse's mouth, the saddle from its back.
"Nightwalker will carry us when we go," he said. "The high families lie north of us now, and a little east."
Aeriel did not reply. She let the hours of the fortnight pass in silence. She tuned her bandolyn, thinking of the maidens' rime, and wondered how far it was to Orm. The heron disappeared into her staff, saying she was weary and would rest.
Roshka gathered his pearls to fill Nightwalker's saddlebags. Erin foraged for stonelike waterworts. Aeriel collected seeds and lichens for their food, while the black horse and the mooncalf grazed the barren valleyside. Disappearing from time to time, the other gargoyles seemed to do their own hunting.
The fortnight passed. At last dawn broke in a white glare down the valley's length. The light of the tower grew dimmer in comparison. Roshka saddled and bridled Nightwalker.
"Why do you stare at me?" Aeriel asked him at last. She sat, turned a little away from him, sipping from a stonewort. "You have been gazing at me ever since we came to this place."
The prince quickly cast down his eyes. He tightened Nightwalker's girth. "I did not mean to stare."
"You think I am she, don't you?" said Aeriel. "Because the Torch is lit. Because I have green eyes." She looked at him. "The suzerain thought I resembled your mother."
The young man gave up his pretense of adjusting the girth. "Your hair," he said softly,
"and your skin are very like mine, though greatly more pale. Your voice is like mine, your build." He came around the black horse then. "Even your name—"
"My name is Aeriel."
"Some slaver's name for you," Roshka exclaimed. "Your own name is Erryl, my sister's name."
"Bomba gave me my name," Aeriel answered, more forcefully than she had meant. "My old nurse in the syndic's house. I loved her well." She fell silent a moment. "Your sister is dead."
The prince knelt down across from her. "Eryka's maid said she saw my sister carried away___"
"By a white bird?" cried Aeriel. "I come from Terrain. I was born there—I must have been. I have no memory of any kith. I have no kith, and my name is Aeriel."
Roshka turned away. "When we go before the high families," he said, "we will let their seeing women decide."
Aeriel fingered her staff moodily. "When first I started upon this trek, many daymonths past," she told him, "I came following a rime:
"But first there must assemble
those the icari would claim, A bride in the temple
must enter the flame,
Steeds found for the secondborn beyond
the dust deepsea, And new arrows reckoned, a wand
given wings— .
So that when a princess royal
shall have tasted of the tree,
Then far from Estemesse 's
city, these things:
A gathering of gargoyles,
a feasting on the stone, The witch of Westemesse's
hag overthrown. "
Aeriel sighed. "I had almost forgotten it." She glanced at Roshka. "Does it mean anything to you?"
He shook his head. Her eyes went to Erin. The dark girl had drawn close, listening. She, too, shook her head. Aeriel looked down, resigning herself.
"Then I must ask the sibyl in Orm what it means." She looked up, finding their eyes again. "Go to the high families and wait for me."
Erin started across from her. "No," she whispered. "I'll not be parted from you."
"Sister," cried Roshka. "Pirs needs its suzerain."
"You are its suzerain," said Aeriel. Then softer, "I am not your sister."
Erin took hold of her sleeve. "Do not leave me," she said.
Aeriel turned. "And you, Erin," she said. "Do you think me the princess of Pirs, as well?"
"I do not care," the dark girl cried. "You are Aeriel. Take me with you. I want to go with you wherever you go."
Aeriel touched her cheek. "Terrain is a country of slavers," she said. "I will not be safe there, nor would you. And the White Witch is hunting me. I know that now. Go with Roshka."
The dark girl drew back from her, let go her sleeve, but her eyes were fierce and her voice very still. "I will not go with him," she said. "I will follow you."
"You must not," Aeriel exclaimed. "How will I find you again if you are not with Roshka?"
"You promised to take me," said Erin, "across the Sea, to those isles where the dark people dwell."
"I shall, I shall," said Aeriel. "I will return for you."
"Don't leave me," Erin cried. Her cheeks were wet.
Aeriel bent and kissed her eyes. "I will return for you." The dark girl clung to her and would not let go. "Roshka," she gasped, struggling to pull Erin's arms from her, "don't let her follow me."
The prince's arms closed around the dark girl, holding her. Erin fought him. He gazed at Aeriel.
"You are my sister," Roshka said. "I know you are. I cannot hold you, too, but you must promise you will come back."
"I will not be long," said Aeriel, and hoped that were the truth.
"No, don't leave me," Erin gasped. "Aeriel, don't go."
The dark girl strained in the prince's arms. Aeriel drew back from her. She felt a tight band winding about her throat. Her vision blurred and ran.
"I cannot take you with me," she whispered. "I dare not."
She turned then, wrenching herself away. She whistled her gargoyles and they sprang up, came loping to her. Aeriel shouldered her pack and picked up her staff. She raised her hood against the white sun's glare.
Behind her, she heard Erin and Roshka both cry out suddenly. Turning, she saw them standing startled, amazed. They stared after her, into the sun, but they were gazing past her, through her, in such astonishment Aeriel was puzzled.
It was as if they could not see her, as if she had vanished suddenly from their sight. Erin gave a low moan, slipped through Roshka's arms to the ground. She covered her face with her hands.
"I will return to you," Aeriel cried, walking backward, away from them, and Erin screamed, weeping into her hands. Roshka knelt, trembling violently, held her against him. With his other hand, he caught Nightwalker's bridle. The horse was sidling; its eyes rolled.
Aeriel turned blindly and followed the gargoyles. Catwing and Greyling walked beside her on either hand, the mooncalf ranging on ahead. Aeriel fared shadowless between Solstar's and the tower's light, down the road toward Terrain.
14
Mage
By the time Solstar had climbed a third of its way toward zenith, Aeriel knew she had crossed into Terrain. The rocks had grown cream-colored, no longer grey. Here
and there slides had scarred the brittle surface of the steeps.
The road led very nearly north. She met no one, avoided towns. Below her, in the valleys where the denser air gathered, leaf fir and hardy fingergrass clustered, higher up, white starblaze and brittlescrub. She walked with her hood raised against the sun, went quickly and steadily, took little rest.
She found herself growing very hungry and weary. She felt chilled from having walked the last hour in the shadow of a steep. Halting where the road curved around a boulder, she sat down in the sunlight. Two of her gargoyles lay panting in the boulder's shade. The third browsed along the road's edge ahead. Aeriel felt ravenous.
And she had no food, she realized, searching her pack. She must have finished off what little she had brought out of Pirs the last time she camped. She eyed the last two apricoks a moment, fingered them—but no.
She put them up again and turned to gaze up the barren road ahead, wondering what root or seed she might gather there. Again, as she had on the beach in Bern, she found herself longing for Talb the duarough and his little velvet bag of delicacies.
Aeriel started from her thoughts. A figure rounded the bend ahead. The mooncalf shied, but the traveler brushed by without seeming to see it. The figure was swathed in a long dark robe, a deep hood hiding the face from view. Sleeves covered even the fingertips.
The hem of the garment dragged on the ground.
The traveler was very short, Aeriel realized as it neared, stood little more than half her height. It nearly wandered off the cliff's edge before righting its course. The fair girl sat staring. The gargoyles beside her had begun to growl.
The figure tripped on the hem of its robe, sprawling flat in the middle of the road. After a moment, it picked itself up and progressed diagonally across the path. It came up against the hillside presently, halting with a muffled curse.
"A plague upon this garment! I vow, let the witch take it—I hate it so. Oof."
It collided with the hillside across from her again. Aeriel's mouth had fallen open.
"You," she said, getting to her feet. "What are you about? Throw back your hood or you will come to harm."
The figure started violently and whirled, feeling the air with its sleeve-hidden hands.
"What's that—who's there?" came a voice much smothered in cloth. Greyling had begun to gibber and Catwing to yowl. "I warn you," the figure cried, "I am a wizard, and you had best be one yourself if you mean to harm me."
Aeriel took the greyling by the scruff of the neck and shook it to be still. Catwing slunk around behind her.
"I am no wizard," she answered, "and I mean you no harm. I only meant you will harm yourself if you do not watch your way. I am Aeriel."
"Aeriel?" the figure exclaimed, struggling with its hood. "Did you say Aeriel? I cannot hear properly in this sack. Where's a shadow?"
Its arms groped for a moment, until they touched the boulder's shade. The figure ducked into the shadow of the rock and threw back its hood. Aeriel gave a little cry, for she recognized the wizened face, the stone-grey eyes and long twining beard. The duarough stood blinking.
"Talb," she cried. "Little mage of Downwend-ing."
The duarough cast about him. "Aeriel?" he said. "Where are you, child?"
"Here," said Aeriel, directly before him now.
The little mage frowned, peered straight through her, then away. He caught sight of the gargoyles suddenly. Greyling yipped and Catwing snarled. The mooncalf on the slope above sent a shower of tiny stones raining down.
"Stop that!" the little mage exclaimed. "Cease, you monstrosities. Aeriel, come out and call off your beasts. Where are you? This is a fine greeting."
Aeriel stilled the gargoyles with a word. "I am right here," she answered, kneeling before the little man. "Can you not see me?" She put back her hood to be able to see him better.
The duarough's eyes found her suddenly, at last. He stared a moment, then began to laugh. "Of course I can see you, daughter—now. Where ever did you get a daycloak? I could well have used one, these last daymonths, in place of this wretched garb."
He gestured to his own ill-fitting garment, then fingered the material of her cloak.
"It is a simple traveler's cloak," she told him, puzzled. "I got it in Bern four daymonths past. What is so remarkable in it?"
"Do you mean," exclaimed the duarough, "you have traveled all the way from Bern in a daycloak and did not know it?"
Aeriel gazed at her robe, feeling the material now herself. It seemed as it had always seemed to her, very soft, pale without, darker within.
"My people make such cloaks," the little man said. "We cannot bear the light of Solstar, for the Ancients made us to dwell underground. We may travel by night, of course, without difficulty, but when we must go overland by day, we must wear a daycloak. That, or swaddle ourselves completely in other stuff."
"But how is my cloak different from yours?" asked Aeriel.
The little mage took off his own dusty over-cloak, careful to stand still completely in the boulder's shadow. He wore, underneath, the garment she remembered, a loose grey robe with many folds.
"Hand me your cloak," he said. Aeriel did so. The duarough shook it out. "The fiber is such, and the weave is such—an ancient art, and one I regret I never learned—as to make the wearer unseen by day, for it is invisible to the light of Solstar."
"Unseen?" said Aeriel, and began to laugh. "I never vanished."
"Not from your own sight," the little man replied. "Those who wear daycloaks can always see themselves." He put the daycloak on.
"And I can see you now," Aeriel said.
"Naturally," the mage replied. "My hood is down. But lift it—" He did so. Nothing happened. Aeriel saw him still, as plain as plain in the shadow of the rock. "And step from the shade—" He stepped into the light of Solstar then, and vanished.
Aeriel started. The gargoyles whined. She heard the duarough's chuckle, and a scuffing as of someone walking. Little puffs of dust rose from the road. She saw footprints there, but no shadow, no form. The little mage reappeared, stepping back into the boulder's shade.
"Of course, I don't dare put back the hood in sunlight," he said. "I'd be visible then, as were you—but being a duarough, I'd turn to stone."
But Aeriel was hardly listening now. "The hood," she murmured. "It only works by sunlight, you say? That is why Erin said I appeared out of the air," she cried, "why she and Roshka looked suddenly so frightened when I left them—why Nat jumped so when she first saw me. The goat-boy called me a sorceress___"
She turned back to the duarough, lost for words.
"It fits you," she found herself saying in a moment, for the garment did, fitting his much shorter, stockier frame exactly as it had fit her tall, slender one.
The duarough nodded. "It is a virtue of day-cloaks always to be exactly the proper size."
Aeriel said, "Is that why I have had no shadow? Even by night, by lamplight, I have no shadow." But gazing down at her feet, she saw with a rush of relief she was casting a shade again, for she was not wearing the daycloak now.
The duarough nodded again. "Who wears a daycloak has no shadow by any light." He sat down, leaning against the rock. "Have you been wearing it hood-up by daylight, daughter?" And when Aeriel nodded, again the little man laughed. "Then no wonder the White Witch has not managed to find you yet."
Aeriel looked at him.
"Oh, yes. She has been hunting you, and me, these many daymonths. Prince Irrylath, too, I suppose, though he is safe in Esternesse."
The mention of her husband's name brought a painful sensation to Aeriel's breast. She turned that the little mage might not see her face. "What do you know of the White Witch's hunting?" she asked him softly.
The other shifted where he sat, stretching as one very weary of travel. He began rummaging through the many pockets of his robe. Aeriel remembered suddenly how ravenous she was.
"I mean to tell you, daughter," he answered then. "But I am hungry. Let
us eat first."
SO THEY ATE. THE DUAROUGH PRODUCED tiny melons the size of fists, plump rosy appleber-ries, yellow rumroot wrapped in husks, shelled halver nuts and the great white mushrooms of which he was so fond, along with a sprig of withered, aromatic leaves.
Aeriel gathered sticks, and the little mage conjured fire. The melons they roasted until they split, crackling and fizzing over the low, licking flames. The rumroots they baked, basting them with the juice of appleberries, and the mushrooms they ate between handfiils of halver nuts.
Then, to Aeriel's surprise, the duarough drew from his robe a tiny kettle, which he filled with water from a flask, then steeped the leaves to a dark green tea which smelled of ginger and tasted of lime. They sipped it from the halves of the split melon rinds.
He told her of all that had befallen him since they had parted a half year ago in Avaric.
How he had journeyed to the witch's palace of cold, white stone, pretending to be some servant of her "son" so that Aeriel and her prince might have time to weave their sail of darkangel's feathers and escape to Isternes.
He told Aeriel of the witch's scream when she had learned at last that Irrylath was lost to her, how he himself had fled then, avoiding her hunters ever since. At last his tale was done; they could eat no more. The little man eyed Aeriel a moment, sipping his tea.
"Were you very unhappy in Esternesse?"
Aeriel sighed. Was it so obvious? "Irrylath loathes the sight of me," she said.
"Does he?" the little mage asked, gently. "The only loathing I saw in him was self-loathing, when last we parted."
Aeriel hugged Greyling, shivering slightly. She did not want to think of Irrylath.
"Maidens came to me," she said, "that had been the vampyre's brides in Avaric. They told me the second part of Ravenna's rime." She looked at the duarough then. "That is why I came away."
The mage's brows went up. "Did they?" he murmured. "Recite it for me."
Aeriel said:
"But first there must assemble
A Gathering of Gargoyles Page 16