A Gathering of Gargoyles

by Meredith Ann Pierce

Chapter 4 The Sea-of-Dust

 

  Aeriel opened her eyes. She found herself sitting in the outer chamber. Outside, the ring-of-maidens burned, low and yellow in the west. She saw by the tilt of the sky it was only a few hours deeper into the long fortnight.

  The apartments around her were quiet, still. No attendants had yet returned. It was the custom in Isternes to sup well just after Solstarset, then sleep. Only a dozen or so hours after sundown did city and palace once more awake.

  Aeriel rose. She had a little time. All weariness had passed from her and her terror at journeying to Orm receded to a small, dull ache. The sibyl and her temple were yet a long road away. The riddle of the maidens remained clear in her mind, although she did not understand it all:

  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 -

  5b 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 unwound the wedding sari from about herself and folded its yards and yards of air-thin cloth. Then she crossed to a great trunk of rose-colored wood, lifting its lid, and drew out the only other garment she owned: the sleeveless shift she had worn among the Ma'a-mbai.

  Aeriel threw on the desert garment, surprised again at how light it felt. With great armholes to let the air enter and a wide, uncollared neck, it hung loosely, falling unbelted to her knees.

  "All I need now is my walking stick," she murmured to herself, "and I would be a true desert wayfarer again. "

  She lowered the heavy trunk lid then. Turning swiftly to catch up the folded sari, she quit the room.

  Aeriel hurried down the empty halls. The palace attendants had disappeared hours before.

  The courtiers were all abed. Aeriel fetched her bandolyn from the music chamber, carried it slung by its strap over her shoulder.

  "This is mine," she told herself. "The Lady gave it to me - and I must have some means to earn my living. "

  She ran unseen through the great receiving hall and out again into the garden. There she gathered almnuts from the little orchard, shaking the papery-shelled kernels from the pale-skinned trees, then dark red dates and leather figs. She pulled up the bitter white bulbs of loongrass growing beside the stream. The fisherfolk carried them in lieu of water flasks.

  She tied them all into her sari, hefted the bulky

  load onto her hip, and hurried upstream toward the cliff overlooking the Sea. She came at last to the little headland and followed the stone wall till she came to the steps leading down.

  Here the dust boats lay moored. All of pale unfinished wood, each rode the rolling dust upon two flat paddles called skates. Suspended in between, each hold hung above the dry waves, not touching them. A single mast with a lateen sail lay shipped in each.

  Aeriel searched for Hadin's little craft. The Lady's youngest son had been teaching her dustsea sailing, how to tack and duck the swinging boom. She found the craft, unslung her bandolyn, untied her sari. She stowed her provisions in the hold, lashing the hempcloth cover down to keep out the dust.

  "Aeriel!"

  The voice startled her. She whirled. Hadin stood upon the headland. Barefoot, his close-toed slippers clutched in one hand, his yellow robe slung over one shoulder, he wore only the knee-length pantaloons that were the undergarb of Istern men.

  Aeriel cast off the mooring, tugged the little boat away from the others. Hadin drew near, and Aeriel saw with a start he was sopping. The Lady's youngestborn laughed, slung the water from his hair.

  "I fell in the stream carrying Arat home from the revel. The others went on. I was on the bank, wringing my gown, when I saw you go by. " Aeriel had reached the end of the pier.

  "Sister, where are you off to, alone, at such an hour?"

  "Hadin, lend me your boat," she said, looking seaward.

  "Would you go sailing?" the other began, joining her upon the pier. "I will come with you - "

  But Aeriel shook her head. The yellow-haired youth grew sober suddenly.

  "Sister, where are you going?" When Aeriel turned to look at him, he started, reaching to touch her cheek and shoulder. "What is this?"

  Then Aeriel realized her cheek, her arm, one hand - wherever the maidens had brushed her was covered now with a fine yellow dust.

  "They've left their gold on me," she murmured, brushing at it. It lit the dark.

  "Who have you been trysting with?"

  Aeriel looked off. "Messengers," she said.

  Hadin gazed at her. "No messengers passed through the city gates. "

  "They did not come that way. "

  The Lady's son was silent. Then he said, "All of us have known, almost from the first, that you are more than you seem, Aeriel. "

  She cast the mooring off, stepped down into the boat, chafing to be gone. "You speak as though I were some sorceress. "

  Hadin knelt upon the pier. "Will you not say where you are bound?"

  "I have a task," she answered, and felt the fear in her again. She put it down. "I must begin at once. " She stepped the mast, not looking at him.

  "Aeriel," he said suddenly, "here. Take my robe. You may have need of it - that shift you wear would not cover a cat. "

  Aeriel laughed, and found the breath catching in her throat. She had not thought to feel sad at going. She took his robe of yellow silk. The feel of it was wet and cool.

  "You take this, then," she said, and handed him her crumpled sari.

  Hadin looked at it. "What am I to do with this?"

  "Give it to Irrylath," she said softly, and turned away, pretending to be busy in the boat.

  Her heart felt sore within her breast, but at the same time very light. She turned back to Hadin suddenly. "But not at once. I would be clean away before Irrylath knows. "

  The boat bobbed on the waves of dust. Aeriel unfurled the sail. Hadin caught her hand, and for a moment she feared he meant to pull her back, but it was only to draw her near enough to kiss her on both cheeks, as was the custom at parting in Isternes.

  "Come back to us. "

  She tried to smile. "Before the Avarclon awakes. I'll bring you a steed in exchange for your boat. "

  The wind was catching at the sail. Aeriel took the tiller as Hadin gave the little craft a shove. She swung the sail line into a tack, and the dust-skate leapt away from shore. The stiff breeze bore her rapidly away. Looking back, she saw Hadin grown suddenly small on the distant pier. She tacked again, hard port, toward Westernesse.

  Aeriel's craft sped over the Sea-of-Dust, riding the swells that rolled like water and glowed by starlight with their own internal fire. Beneath the surface, Aeriel saw the silt-fine particles constantly shifting. Wind stole a few from the crests of the waves, whirling them off in dust devils against the dark, starry sky.

  So fine were the grains that Aeriel could scarcely see them, hardly felt them when she breathed, aware at first only of their faint, tangy aroma. Before many hours, though, she found her throat growing dry. Her eyes felt grainy, her fingers paper-leathery.

  Tying the sail and tiller into place, she drew out from her provisions a loongrass bulb and bit through the white, parchmentlike skin. The meat inside was stiff, the juice astringent but satisfying. She needed only a few bites before the feeling of dryness eased.

  The colors of the Sea were changing now. Close in to shore, the dust had been greyish, almost buff-colored. But as she sailed farther, deeper to sea, the dust grew paler, clear yellow green, and later violet. Sometimes the waves rolled mauve.

  Stars turned
. Night drifted by. Oceanus peered over the rim of the world, and Aeriel's heart lifted, soared. The air was showered in its ghost-blue light. Gradually, the planet rose.

  Aeriel ate of the dates, the figs, the almnut kernels in their papery shells, chewed the loongrass bulbs. Tiresome fare - more than once she found herself longing for the tiny velvet bag the duarough once had lent her. It had held, seemingly within no space at all, an endless store of delicious food.

  Sometimes she stood, searching for shore, or tied the tiller and sail securely and slept.

  The first time she awoke to find two inches of windblown dust in the hold. Afterward, she bailed every few hours and slept only in snatches.

  The wind held mainly steady, her course needing adjustment only now and again. She steered by Oceanus and the stars. The midpoint of the fortnight loomed and passed.

  Twice Aeriel's craft passed close to peaks rising jagged and slender from the dust. Birds wheeled in crowded columns above those isles.

  Sometimes in the distance she watched dust whales - great fish-shaped things a hundred paces long and filled with buoyant gas. They spouted and sounded, lolled sporting with their calves, or rose in towering pairs at some courting ritual.

  Once, passing within sight of whales, Aeriel found floating on the Sea a lump of pale green stuff, very like beeswax, save that its odor was bittersweet, like very old perfume.

  She kept it, for no reason, lying in one corner of the hold. She had no idea what it was.

  Once she passed through a flock of skias, sleek raucous birds with silver bodies, long wings and black-masked eyes. They flocked and plummeted above the waves, snatching bits of something from the dust.

  As Aeriel drew near, she realized it was tiny crayfish they were catching. A swarm had gathered, feeding upon algae that lay like reddish bloom upon the Sea. Aeriel leaned over the gunwale, flipped one of the little creatures into the hold.

  Its segmented body was crystalline clear. It had many whiskers upon its nose, two small black eyes on stalks, jointed legs, and a broad, flat tail. In a moment it had buried itself in the dust of the hold.

  A skia landed on the gunwale, cawing. It eyed the spot where the little fish had disappeared, but Aeriel drove it away. After a time, the plankton, the swarm, and the flock of skias fell behind. Aeriel sifted through the dust.

  At first the little creature scurried from her fingers, hiding itself again, but presently it grew tamer, sat upon her palm while she fed it bits of date. Soon the little fish hid itself in the folds of her robe rather than in the dust when Aeriel bailed - though now she never threw out so much that the dustshrimp did not have its little pocket in one corner of the hold.

  The third quarter of the fortnight went by.

  Once they passed what seemed to be a wellspring in the middle of the Sea - but the dust that welled from it was neither green nor gold, purple nor grey, but blue, very deep: dark as blown colored glass. It ran in little rivulets among the other strands of color, seemingly heavier, for it quickly sank from sight.

  Aeriel scooped up a handful as she passed, it was so pretty, and tied it away in one sleeve of Hadin's robe. As soon as it had dried, she had wrapped her bandolyn in that to keep out the dust, the grey-green wax as well. The dustshrimp carefully picked out the few grains of blue that had fallen into the hold and devoured them. Aeriel fed it another pinch, all it would eat, and after that, its crystal shell was blue.

  She passed a cluster of islands once, arranged in a broad semicircle, coming within a mile of only one of them, the farthest on one horn of the crescent. In the distance, upon its beach she saw boats, long and slender, turned up at the ends like Istern slippers. Against the pale sand of the shore, she thought she saw dark figures moving.

  And then to her surprise, for she had been looking to the island and forgetting to steer, she found herself almost upon an outlying reef. She had to tack quickly, very hard, to avoid being dashed.

  Upon those jagged rocks knelt a boy, very black, naked but for a skirt about his legs.

  He was raising a crab net from the dust and plucking the crabs from it, tossing them into a close-woven basket. He had not seen her. But glancing up then as she passed, not four paces from him, she leaning hard against the sail lines and tiller to bank the craft, he did see her, and started up.

  They stared at one another as she swept past: the slim, dark boy - even his eyes were black - and the fair-skinned girl. Two crabs freed themselves from his dangling net, dropped to the reef and scuttled across. They buried themselves in the breaking dust.

  The breeze off the island freshened then, billowed the sail, plucked Aeriel suddenly out to sea. The dark cliffs and the crabfisher fell away behind. Not many hours and sleeps after that, Aeriel spotted the western shore - pale forested hills of Bern rising beyond the strand. The Sea had turned greenish here, closer to shore, and the fortnight was almost done.

  Approaching shore, Aeriel came aware of a hollow booming. She saw spray flying ahead of her - starlit dust, finer than fine - then glimpsed through the valleys of waves, rocks jagged as dogs' teeth. The shining combers leapt over and between.

  Aeriel took the tiller and sail lines in hand. She tacked for an hour along the coast, but the rocks stretched endlessly, barring the shore. Does it go on forever? she wondered at last, when her arms had grown so sore they were numb. Dawnlight touched the peaks beyond the shore, gilding them in its harsh white glare.

  Then suddenly beneath the boat, she felt motion. The craft tilted; one skate lifted from the dust. Aeriel nearly lost her balance. She luffed sail and leaned. The craft began righting itself, but the current had swept her much closer to shore. Aeriel struggled with the lines, trying to tack the little boat away.

  A narrow headland jutted into the Sea not a half mile before her. A tall tower stood upon its tip, high above the waves which whipped around the headland's bend like rapids, leaping the teeth of the rocks.

  Two lines of reef ran parallel there, overlapping their curves in a brief corridor. The inner line petered out just before the outer curved sharply inward, out of sight beyond the headland's bend.

  Aeriel saw then, running ahead of her just under the surface of the green and shining Sea, a broad ribbon of reddish rose. Some current of different-colored dust? It undulated like an eel through the narrow passage. She followed it.

  Rocks closed around her on both sides. She felt the racing red current beneath the skates, die pull upon the sail of wind whipping around the bend. The wall of rocks to shoreward ended; the right curve loomed. Aeriel leaned, tacked, luffed sail with all her strength.

  She felt the right skate grate upon the stone. Its pole splintered. The craft leaned hard, hard to port, trying to turn. She felt the tiller graze the rocks, groan, split in her hand. The hold bucked, buckled underfoot.

  The mast toppled. She felt the sail pulling free, beginning to drag her. She grabbed frantically, at anything. Something hard and silk-wrapped came away in her grasp. Her hand slipped on the sail line and the sail snatched away. It billowed toward shore. Aeriel found herself sinking.

  She floundered, trying to wade, but nothing was solid under her feet. Incoming waves surged, shoving her. She pitched forward, closed her eyes and held her breath. The beach lay diirty paces off and she could not reach it. She was smodiering in dust.

  Something underneath her heaved, lifting her, carrying her toward shore. She felt air around her once again, and gasped. Blinking, she tried to see. The green of the Sea had turned vermilion.

  Just for a moment, her knees and palm felt something solid, rough as overlapping shingles, warm to the touch, not cool like the fine, friction-less dust. Then she was ashore, dashed against the hard, flat stones.

  Gasping, she crawled forward out of the surf. Something dragged along the ground beside her. She saw with surprise it was her bandolyn, still wrapped in Hadin's yellow robe. Aeriel's limbs gave out. About her legs, dry spume ran like water th
rough the interstices of the rocks. She rolled onto her back, stared up into the black dawn sky.

  A huge head, fringed with vermilion feathers, rose from the Sea and stared at her with serpentine, unblinking eyes.

  That image of the serpent's eyes re-mained in her dreams until Aeriel awoke. It was day.

  She lay on the warmth of hard, scaly shore. She brushed the dust from her eyes and raised her head from the dry shingle. Light lay upon the headland now, though the broad beach below was still in shadow. Her nightmare of the serpent's head was gone. She rolled onto her belly, pushed herself to her knees, and realized that she still held the silk-wrapped bandolyn. She fumbled with the robe, unwound it hurriedly, but the little silver-wood instrument seemed undamaged.

  A short distance from her lay the wreckage of her craft. She rose and went to it, but the wood was in splinters, the hempcloth sail in shreds. Her provisions had all been swept away. Aeriel sighed and champed her teeth. Her stomach shifted against itself.

  I shall never reach the sibyl in Orm, nor find the lost Ions of Westernesse, she told herself, if I starve to death on this beach. She laughed a little. Truly, now is a time when I could make use of the duarough's velvet pouch!

  Just as she was turning away from the wreck, she caught sight of a stirring in the broken hold. In a moment, her crystal dustshrimp emerged from a pocket of dust, waving its tiny pincers. Aeriel found herself laughing again, knelt and put it in one fold of her garment.

  "Well," she said, "we will see what food may be found to feed both of us. "

  The beach behind lay empty as far as she could see. The sheer cliff before seemed at first to be featureless white stone, but drawing near, Aeriel spotted a stair cut into the rock.

  The steps were only a half pace wide, and steep. Aeriel climbed slowly.

  Reaching the top, she saw the headland was very narrow. Beyond, a strip of beach ran off into the distance beneath the same white cliffs. She found herself very near the round stone tower. A tree grew just at the tower's base.

  Its slender trunk was crooked and many-branching, with dark reddish skin and small, pale leaves. Hanging upon the nearest bough, just at the level of her eye, Aeriel saw a fruit. It was only half the size of her doubled fist, and made in lobes so that it looked almost heart-shaped. Rose gold in color, very dark, it shone like amber in the morning light.

  The fruit was warm to her touch; Solstar had baked it. Its smooth skin was covered with fine hairs, like bees' fur. It came away easily from the stem when she pulled on it. The crystal leaves tinkled. The gnarled branches swayed. Its aroma was like honey browned in cinnamon.

  Aeriel felt weak. She brushed the fuzz; it fell away like reddish dust. Beneath, the skin was gold. She bit into the fruit. Its nectar was warm and sweet, the flesh tender and tasting of spice. Aeriel swallowed, savoring. Her weariness began to fade.

  A few more bites left only the hard seed. The last scrap of fruit she began feeding the dust-shrimp.

  "Thief!"

  Aeriel turned in surprise.

  "Stealer of apricoks!"

  The voice came from the tower behind her. . The dustshrimp hid itself in a fold of her shift. A person, very ragged and bent, appeared in a doorway to one side of the tree.

  "Thief of my apricoks - thought you might simply have one and be off?"

  The thin figure hobbled toward her, using a stick. Aeriel stared. Grassy weeds grew across the threshold. The tree stood unpruned. The tower within was dark.

  "I did not know that anyone lived here," she began.

  "Didn't know?" the old person cried. "Thought the tower built itself, I vow. " It picked at and arranged its long, shabby robe. "A body cannot doze a moment but thieves come slinking. . . . "

  "I am no thief," insisted Aeriel. "I did not know the tree was yours. I have just come a very long way and have had no food or drink for hours. "

  "Not my doing," the other snapped. "Only travelers across the Sea-of-Dust may taste my apricoks. "

  "I am a traveler across the Sea-of-Dust," Aeriel said.

  The person blinked. "Impossible. No one has come across the Mare in years. "

  "I have just come," answered Aeriel. "I wrecked my craft upon the rocks. "

  The person peered at her with narrowed eyes, then hobbled to the cliff's edge and gazed over.

  "Yes, so, I see your boat," it muttered, coming back. "Smashed into bits. Wonder you weren't, along with it. Well, you are welcome to the fruit in that case - but you must give me the seed. "

  Aeriel realized she still held the stone in her hand. The old body had snatched it from her before she could offer. "What will you do with it?"

  The other only snorted, turning the stone over in bony hands, seemingly lost in thought.

  "My name is Aeriel," Aeriel added in a moment, "and I have come from Isternes. "

  The other stirred. "Esternesse, do you mean?" She nodded. "Hm. " The person peered at her again. "You don't dress as those that used to come from Esternesse. "

  "My first home was Terrain, though I have lived in Avaric since. This garment is from Pendar. "

  "Well traveled," the person mused. "I take it you mean your kith come from Terrain. "

  Aeriel shook her head. "I have no kith. I was bought motherless, a babe. "

  "Bought?" the other exclaimed. "Bought?" Then it shook its head, murmuring, "Hard times that see babes bought in Terrain - elsewhere, too, I'll be bound, if in Terrain. What a long time I have been dozing. " It turned back to her then. "But I see you are no longer a slave. Traveling storier - is that what puts you on the road?"

  Aeriel fingered the strap of her bandolyn, slung from one shoulder. "So I hope to become. " The other said nothing, seemed deep in thought once more. "What are you?"

  she ventured.

  The person sighed. "Hm? Oh, I keep the tower. I tend the tree. " It started away, back toward the doorway. "Come with me if you would see what I'll do with the seed. "