Beyond her, she saw the raptor spring—but not at Dirna, at the mage. It seized the velvet bag in its teeth, straining against the stone hand's grip.
Then all at once there came a fury of gargoyles: screaming and hooting, snarling and lunging. The little bag shredded to tatters as the grey beasts struggled free.
Dirna cried out. She whirled. Irrylath caught at her arm, but she twisted away. Ducking behind him, she fled the cave. The gargoyles plunged after her, a storm of shrieking and screams.
The harridan sprang from the temple porch. At cliff's edge she halted, whirling. Irrylath's shadow lay on the duarough now, and the little man was once more flesh. Dirna faced them, brandishing something small and silver. The gargoyles checked their headlong rush.
"Stay, monsters," she shouted. "I hold the witch's whistle still. Kill the Avaric prince and his duarough and his bride; then find my eye among the rocks. I serve the white lady, and you must serve me."
She was raising her lean and leathery arm, she was putting the whistle to her lips—when something white and winged skimmed through the temple door. The heron sailed, stroking. Solstar's light shone through her wings. She flew in the face of the harridan, and plucked the pipe from Dirna's hand.
The hag cried out, spun, snatching after it.
Cliff's edge beneath her one heel crumbled, fell into dust. She seemed to hang in space a moment, then the earth beneath her other heel gave way. With a cry, she toppled, vanishing beyond the rim of the altar cliffs. And with a yell like hounds after their prey, the gargoyles plunged after her over the edge.
16
Sfinx
Everything was very dark. Aeriel saw nothing and could feel nothing. She hung suspended in a void, so weary she could hardly think. She longed to sleep.
"Aeriel, awake."
Flickers in the darkness now, little flames of golden light.
"Waken, Aeriel," said Marrea.
The maidens encircled her, like lightbearers. Like stars—they who had once been the withered wraiths, the vampyre's brides. They were all so beautiful now.
"We followed your thread," Eoduin told her.
"Am I in deep heaven?" Aeriel asked. She had no body anymore, but she felt heavy still, weighty as dust.
"No," Marrea answered. "We are a long way from there. Deep heaven is full of light."
"But we can go there," another maiden said.
"If you will come."
Aeriel frowned—made to frown, for she found she had no face, no brows to move. She murmured, "Come with you?"
"Yes," the maidens answered. "Yes."
Marrea had not spoken. Aeriel gazed at her. She felt so tired.
"I do not want to come."
"But you must," the others cried. "You must."
"You have no kith, no one to hold you in the world."
"Roshka," muttered Aeriel. "Roshka is my kith."
"You do not know that."
"It is not certain."
"But Dirna said...," she protested.
"Dirna was mad," said Eoduin.
"I promised Erin...," Aeriel began.
"Do you love her more than me?"
The other maidens held out their hands. "We love you, Aeriel."
Still Marrea did not speak. Aeriel resisted the urge to go to them. "Hadin," she whispered,
"the princes of Isternes and the Lady love me."
"But Irrylath does not love you."
Aeriel twinged; she felt a sharp, bitter pain where her heart should have been—for she feared they spoke the truth, and she longed to turn away, shut her eyes, shut her ears to their words. But she had no body, no ears or eyes. She could not turn from the maidens or shut them out.
"No," Aeriel whispered at last. She could fight them no more. "He does not love me."
She longed to give up the world then, to go with them, leave the sorrow of that pain, and everything else behind. Almost, she told them "yes"—but stopped herself. Someone was speaking to her, from a very great distance. The maidens started and glanced at one another.
"Do not listen," Eoduin said.
"It is nothing," another told her.
Aeriel felt her body beginning to return. The feel of her own substance was unbearably heavy, smothering. Almost against her will, she began to struggle.
"Someone is calling me," she told the maidens.
"Not so."
"Come with us."
"Quickly, Aeriel."
"No," Marrea broke in suddenly.
Eoduin had drawn very near, touching Aeriel's cheek—she had a cheek now and could feel the touch. "Companion, I very much wish that you would come with us."
Aeriel gazed at her, remembering how she had loved her in childhood, and wanted to go with her. But Marrea moved between them now. Eoduin hesitated, but at last drew reluctantly away.
"Now is not the time," said Marrea.
"But it has been promised us," the maidens cried.
"That we might have our Aeriel."
"Among us."
"Soon."
"Not yet," Marrea answered them. "Nor is this the way. The White Witch is yet in the world. Aeriel may not join our company until that one has been destroyed."
"Let her join us now," Eoduin protested, "and nothing more of the world will matter to her."
But the light and voices of the maidens were growing faint. Someone was speaking to her, shaking her. There was a humming in her ears, a bitter scent. She felt her body completely once again— enfolding her, holding her to earth. She could not have followed the maidens now if she had wanted. Her flesh was numb, cold as cave water.
"Aeriel, Aeriel," the voice was saying. "Come back to me. Come back."
The dark was not utter darkness anymore. The maidens had gone. The surface beneath her shivered slightly. Aeriel heard digging, scratching. Another voice: "Stop. You will ruin that blade."
"Let it be ruined then," the first voice cried. "We must get her free."
"I have a better means."
Aeriel heard a clinging coupled with chinks, as of bright metal ringing on stone. Someone was pulling her, lifting her. The surface beneath her shuddered. Its hold weakened. Then there was a sharp pain and she moaned.
"There. She is still caught there."
The ring of metal once again. She felt a chipping, then a hard, sharp crack. A bitter puff.
The humming of the Stone fizzled in a faint crackling flash. Someone was lifting her away from it.
"Aeriel," he said. "Aeriel."
She remembered to breathe. Something brushed her lips, her eyes. She opened them, blinked in surprise. It was Irrylath bending over her. His one hand hovered above her cheek, his lips parted slightly, his eyes half wild. She lay upon the temple floor, no longer on the Stone.
The duarough stood a few paces off, beside the Stone. It crackled still, and then it ceased.
Its hum fell silent. A very fine Bernean blade lay in splinters on the floor. The little mage held in his hand the silver hammer she had brought from the un-dercaves of Pirs.
Irrylath saw her looking at him then. He snatched back his hand, leaning away from her with a start. Aeriel shuddered with the cold. Her skin felt like the shadow of night—save across her shoulders, the backs of her arms: everywhere that she had touched the Stone was fire.
She reached one hand toward Irrylath. She could hardly get her fingers to move, or her lips to part. Did he kiss me? she thought to herself. She almost felt that she would die if he had not.
But he flinched away from her. "No," he whispered, staring at her, as though she frightened him suddenly.
Aeriel put one hand to her head. "I felt something," she murmured.
Some inward part of her protested his denial. He loves me—it must be so. Oh, let him love me, for I want it so. But a great feeling of hopelessness was overcoming her. Had she only imagined his touch? She felt fainting weak.
Irrylath shuddered and pulled away from her. He rose with difficulty, as though leaving her were somehow hard, and tu
rned away. "Not I. It was not I."
Aeriel dragged herself upright and managed to sit. She felt too spent, too defeated for tears. Dark chips of glassy stone lay on the floor. The temple chamber was very dim, for Solstar was down. Talb had put away the silver pick. He knelt beside the firepit now, throwing fuel upon the coals.
Horrible sounds came from the gargoyles, on the rocks below. Aeriel was still shaking.
Someone had wrapped her in pale gold cloth, yards and yards of it, very light and fine. It held no heat. The duarough steeped a tea over the coals and made her drink, for she was white with cold.
The pain in her shoulders and along her back was fierce. The little mage tore something into strips and bandaged her arm, which along its underside looked badly scraped. He had no salve. All this time Irrylath stood off, the light of the firepit making hollows of his eyes.
The flames in the pit died down to coals. The little mage left them and went off in search of firewood. Irrylath had taken the bandolyn from her pack, knelt gazing at it. His fingers touched the strings, at first tentatively, and then with great beauty and skill.
Aeriel recognized the melody, the haunting sweet notes almost painful to her ears. That he could be capable of such beauty and yet still hold himself aloof—surely she could never reach him.
"You play so well," Aeriel murmured at last, "much better than I. Why have I not heard you play before?"
Irrylath set down the bandolyn. He did not look at her.
"In the witch's house," he said, "I forgot such things. Only now, since I have been in Isternes, have I begun remembering." He was silent a moment, then he said, almost fiercely, "This was my bandolyn that my mother brought out of Avaric. She had no right to give it to you."
Aeriel looked down, surprised and somehow stung. She was wearing her wedding sari.
She recognized it now. She lifted a little bit between her fingers, and looked up again.
"Did you bring this with you out of Isternes?" she asked.
Irrylath breathed deep, as though the air were going bad.
"When Hadin told me you had gone," he said, "I set out in a boat to follow you." His words grew steadier now, not quite ragged. "I was becalmed. I nearly starved. But Marelon, the Lithe Serpent of the Sea-of-Dust, found me. She said she had seen you safe ashore in Bern."
Then Aeriel remembered the great plumed head that had risen from the surf and gazed at her. Had it been no dream? She stared at Irrylath. Had he come following her—was he here in Orm on her account? She shook her head. It had not occurred to her before. Her hand was shaking, as she toyed with a pebble at the firepit's edge.
"I got aid in Bern from my cousin, Sabr," Irrylath continued. "The whole country was alive with news of a green-eyed sorceress who had stolen a strange beast from the city of thieves and disappeared through the demon's pass."
"Sabr," Aeriel said, trying to recall where she had heard the name. It came to her, slowly: Nat's words in the Talis inn. "The bandit queen."
Irrylath glanced at her. "She is my father's sister's child, and rules a band of those who fled the plains. Some have been calling her the queen of Avaric, thinking me dead."
Again he was silent, looking away.
"I lost you in Zambul," he murmured. His mouth tightened. His scarred cheek twitched.
"Where have you been? I have been in Terrain two daymonths, searching for you."
"I was in Pirs," said Aeriel.
Irrylath drew in his breath. "Why did you go away from Isternes? Did you not guess the witch would learn of it?"
She nodded. "I knew." His fierceness puzzled her. How could her knowing have mattered?
The prince turned back to her. "Why, then? Why did you go? I had you safe in my mother's house."
Aeriel sighed, for sheer weariness. "I had a task." Even that did not matter anymore. The sibyl was dead. Now she would never find the Ions of Westernesse before the witch. The lorelei had won. "I came in search of winged steeds."
She looked off, then laughed a little, bitterly.
"But I have found only gargoyles instead." She turned to him again. "You cannot defeat six dark-angels alone."
Irrylath was gazing at her now as though he did not believe her—did not believe what she had just said, or did not believe she would dare such a task. Was she only a girl in his thinking, still? And what did that matter, now, in any case? The world was lost.
But he only said, "Seven darkangels, if the witch can steal another babe."
A tiny hope flared in Aeriel suddenly. She dared to breathe. "What became of the Ions of the West," she asked him, "the ones the icari overthrew?"
But hope sputtered and died as Irrylath shook his head. He spoke with difficulty—she knew how he loathed to recall anything of the witch.
"I do not know," he said distantly. "When I had captured the Ion of Avaric, I was to bring him to her. But he eluded me, in the desert died." Again he shook himself. "The Ions were to be brought to her. That is all I know."
Aeriel bowed her head. She was so weary, she ached. But she could not stop herself from asking, "Why did you come? What do you care what should befall me?" She spoke softly, barely above a whisper. "You are my husband in nothing but name. You are neither my lover nor my friend."
She was staring down, could not see his face. When at first he did not reply, she thought it was because he had not heard. But he spoke at last, the words measured.
"Before I came away from Isternes, I told Syllva what you knew I must, that it was I who had been the darkangel in Avaric that you overthrew."
Aeriel looked up. He had turned his face away.
"To which, she put her hand upon my cheek" —he touched the scars—"just here, and said she had already guessed." His voice grew dark. He gazed upward. "Syllva had known it all along."
Aeriel watched him, finding herself strangely unsurprised. "Of course she knew." How could she not? The Lady was his own mother—how could she not? "Did you think her a fool?"
Irrylath let his breath out, a short, soft hiss, as though her words had unwittingly stung.
He seemed to struggle with himself a moment, then turned to face her.
"I told her another thing also," he said, "what I was in the witch's house before she made me her darkangel."
His voice had become utterly steady now, and very still. Aeriel gazed at him, shaking her head. "What thing?" she murmured. Her despair lightened a trace: all at once something mattered again. What thing? "You were Irrylath."
The prince shook his head and shuddered, as though hating the touch of his own garb against his skin, his own flesh against his bones. He sat leaning away, gazing on her as if she were leagues distant, a world away.
"I was her lover, Aeriel."
Her throat became then dry suddenly. There was no more air in the temple, no more light.
She could not find her voice. "What do you mean?" she whispered. "You were a babe, a boy___"
"And then a youth," he said, "as now."
She could not see his face. She could not see him anymore. Everything was in darkness now.
"That is why you cannot love me."
She could hear his breathing, light and difficult.
"I may love no mortal woman while she lives. She holds that power on me yet. It is the White Witch that I dream of, Aeriel. I dream of her still."
Aeriel struggled to rise. She needed her staff to help her stand. She felt giddy, hollow within, as if the Stone had devoured some part of her that would not return. The cold moved through her, like the night.
"Oh," she breathed, "I knew this. Her lover— I knew. The wraidis, they told me once, in Avaric. I was not listening. It was so long ago, I had forgot."
Her skin was bleeding. She felt the blood. She moved away from Irrylath, toward the door, the openness, the night. She could not breathe. She could not bear to think of it anymore. She touched the bandage on her arm. The pain was fire in her skin.
"Ambergris," she breathed. "It hurts."
AERIEL S
TOOD UPON THE NARROW PORCH. Night around her was black, the sky above riddled with stars. Oceanus hung, white-marled and blue above the steeps. She leaned against her staff. Orm spread dark, torchlit, before her. Her bones felt broken at the joints. And she was very cold.
Gradually, she came aware of another light beside the distant fires of Orm. She lifted her head from where she had bowed it against the staff. A blue flame flickered in the offering bowl. It darted over the garlands and treasures. The bolts of silk-cloth began to burn.
The flame changed from blue to plum, then rose, growing brighter now. Aeriel saw the cakes and flowers vanish, the cloth consumed. The flame grew amber, yellow, green, then white. The coins of silver, the cups of white zinc-gold began to melt. Upon the crest of the heap, the lump of ambergris bubbled, smoking, its sweet scent filling the air.
Aeriel went to the bowl. The flame stood higher than she did now. She held her hands to the fire, but the great blaze seemed to have no heat. She touched the fire. It swirled about her hand, feeling warm, suffused with energy, but did not burn. She felt something coming back into her now.
Aeriel thrust the heel of her staff into the ground beside the bowl and stepped over the rim. She stood in the middle of the blazing dish. The fire beat around her like burning cloud. It lifted her hair, made her garment billow, but the wedding sari did not burn.
The treasure had formed a pool of liquid silver that swirled, blood-warm about her feet.
The bandage upon her arm caught fire. She saw the blood there blacken and burn away.
She felt the cold departing from her. The scent of ambergris was all around.
"Are you the sibyl?" someone said.
Aeriel turned and saw the lyonesse with the woman's face upon the temple roof was stirring. She was tawny-colored now, no longer stone. Arching her spine, catlike, she flexed her claws.
"The sibyl is dead," answered Aeriel, surprised that she could still feel surprise.
"You must be the new one, then," the lyonesse said, yawning. "None but those who have drunk the Stone's blood can stand in my fire without burning. Only my sibyls do diat. It gives them long life, and dreams."
A Gathering of Gargoyles Page 19