Chapter 12 Prisoner
Aeriel was aware of a coldness against her back. Opening her eyes, she found herself huddled in a tiny space. Through the barred window in the stone wall behind, morning light streamed. A wall of masonry rose just in front of her, with no door, only a tiny chink partway up where no brick had been placed. To her right, the other wall was sloping, earth and stone: a hillside, mostly in shadow.
Her arm had been chained to the window wall. She tried to rise, feeling very stiff. Her legs below the knee prickled. She flexed and chafed them, then her arm. She felt dizzy and a little sick. Peering out the window, she judged it must be a dozen hours since dawn, and she had not eaten for hours before that. She rubbed her temple and the back of her head. They were sore.
Two eyes appeared in the chink across from her. "So, little witch," the suzerain said,
"awake at last. How deep you slept - right through the walling up of this dead-end passage. "
Aeriel realized what the faint odor she detected was: fresh mortar. "What do you intend to do with me?" she said.
The other laughed. "I intend to take great good care of you. "
"Why have you walled me in?"
"Locks can be picked," the suzerain replied. "But this cell has no door to be unbarred.
Little sorceress, I am not completely a fool. "
"I am not a sorceress," said Aeriel.
The suzerain smiled. She saw the skin beneath his eyes creasing. "And I suppose your staff did not become a bird? Oh, you were careful to conceal your magic from me. But now, without your staff, I think you can have little power. "
Aeriel felt herself shivering - with anger, not with cold. "Oh, it is well you are a nameless man. I can think of nothing to call you that could be fouler than your name. "
"Impertinent girl," the man beyond the wall replied. His eyes vanished. He shoved a bread crust through the chink. "Fill your mouth with that. Perhaps when I have caught my nephew and that boy of yours, you will not be so insolent. " Aeriel felt the blood come to her face. "Roshka and Erin are long gone by now. "
The suzerain did not seem to hear her. "You will say yes to me in time," he said. "If I leave you alone long enough, you will come to hunger for my company. You will say yes. " "Eryka," said Aeriel, "did not say yes. " She heard a cry beyond the wall. The masonry shuddered when he struck it. "Witch," he shouted. "Cursed witch!"
She glimpsed him going, heard his footfalls down the hall. They faded. The cell grew still. Aeriel felt herself continuing to tremble. I could never be your bride, she thought -
and then, almost against her will - for I am another's bride. Irrylath. The memory of him was suddenly all she had to cling to against the suzerain. Her legs felt weak. She sat down abruptly, and felt the shackle yank her wrist. The eye space gaped vacantly. She was alone.
Aeriel let the crust lie a long time be-fore she touched it. She dusted the dirt from it at last, tasting carefully, but she could detect no taint, no hungerspice. She ate hungrily then.
A movement along her shoulder startled her. She turned to see her dustshrimp standing there. Had it been hidden in the folds of her garment all this time?
She offered it a crumb from the crust, but it would not take it, wandered restlessly along her arm. After a little, it crept down to the floor, began exploring the tiny cell, investigating every niche. Finally it found a crack in the earthen wall and there it stayed, refusing all crumbs. It never moved, but seemed perfectly content. Its little eyes on stalks watched her.
Aeriel paced her tiny cell, as much as the chain on her wrist would allow, for she began to grow so weary from lack of movement she felt like sleeping all the time. She practiced stories, without her bandolyn, and watched what she could through the close-barred window. Sometimes the tramp of soldiers' feet and the rattle of horses' hooves came to her, or the groan of the great gates being drawn.
The suzerain came to her cell at odd hours. He informed her how the search proceeded, soldiers combing the garden and grounds, huntsmen riding in the woods. He spoke at her for hours through the crack, pleading with her, sometimes threatening. Aeriel said nothing, refused to look at him. More than once he merely flung her a crust and stalked away.
The daymonth had worn itself half away when she heard a scrabbling behind her, whirled and saw the heron at the window, white against the black noon sky.
"Wing," she cried, then caught herself. "Why are you not with Roshka and Erin?"
The white bird bobbed, clinging awkwardly to the window bars. "Oh, they have not gone.
Roshka poled Erin to a little island in the middle of the garden pool. So far, no soldiers have thought to search there. "
"But," cried Aeriel, "they will be taken if they remain here. Why did they not fly at once, as I bade?"
"Erin would not go without you. "
Aeriel fell silent. "What have they been living on?" she asked at last.
The heron shrugged. "What I can bring them: fruit of the garden, fish. What have you?"
Aeriel sighed. "What the suzerain brings me. Moldy bread. I get what water I can from a trickle down the wall. "
The white bird cocked her head. "Only water and bread? No wonder you are so pasty grey. You cannot live on that. Wait here," she said, without thinking, so Aeriel nearly laughed. The heron flew away in a slow stroking of wings.
Almost at once she had returned, grasping a peachmelon in each foot and a sprig of fat currants in her bill. Aeriel took them and ate. The yellow fruits were deliciously sweet, the currants tender-skinned and tart.
"Your arm is chained," the heron said. Aeriel looked up. She had grown so used to the shackle, she had almost forgotten it. "Hold your wrist over here. "
Aeriel did so, bringing it as close to the white bird as she could. Inclining her head, the heron inserted her bill into the key space and turned. Aeriel felt a click, and the shackle fell free.
"I could not come before," the heron was saying, "because there was a guard beneath your window, but he and a serving boy stole off into the garden a little while ago. "
Aeriel rubbed her wrist. "Is that how you knew where to find me, by the guard?"
"Roshka made a guess. Hist, I must go," the bird said suddenly. "Your guard returns. I will come again when next he goes. "
"Tell Erin," cried Aeriel, "tell Erin she must go now, without me. She and Roshka must flee. "
The white bird shrugged. "I will tell her. She will not listen. They dare not move now, in broad day, in any case. The suzerain is combing the woods too well. " The heron flew.
Next time the suzerain came with a crust, Aeriel flung it back at him through the niche.
He gazed at her through the crack, surprised. "Where is the chain," he cried, "the chain I bound you with?"
"I grew weary of wearing it. "
"Someone has given you the key," he cried. Aeriel watched him. He vanished from the niche; she could hear him pacing. "Someone has brought you food and a key," he muttered. "Do my own people betray me? Henceforward, you will have guards posted here as well. "
His eyes reappeared, bloodshot, dark-circled.
"How well have you slept these past hours," Aeriel inquired, "with the black bird pecking at your dreams?"
"Guards!" the suzerain shouted. She heard his footsteps down the hall. She felt a moment of panic then, suddenly, realizing that if the suzerain's guards watched her through the crack, the heron could not come to her again.
The fear swifdy faded, though, for though Aeriel had soldiers outside her cell from then on, after the first hour of their gazing in on her uneasily every now and again, she heard them move off down the hall. Their murmured talk drifted in to her, and the rattle of counters as they played at dice.
The suzerain returned no more. Her food was brought her by the guards. Whenever the heron came, bringing fruit, she and Aeriel kept their voices low. Aeriel ate the fruit, and felt her strength beginning to return.
Shadows grew longer. Solstar hung five dozen hours from setting. The white bird came to Aeriel then, saying Roshka and Erin had gone down into the hollow again but had not yet emerged. Aeriel felt a twinge of fear. They had never been gone so long before.
The twinge became a tremor when the heron came again, perhaps a dozen hours later, and said Erin and the prince were still below. Aeriel felt a gathering despair when, just before Solset, the white bird appeared a third time with no word. She began to give them up for lost.
Not long after, the suzerain came. She heard him roaring at his soldiers for playing dice in the crosshall instead of keeping watch outside her cell. His eyes appeared in the niche.
"I have come, little witch, to bid you farewell. "
Aeriel looked up, left off gnawing the last crust the guards had brought her. Her stomach clenched. The suzerain smiled.
"I have decided you are more pain to me than you are worth. The white lady has told me she will give me back my name when I capture your gargoyles-----"
Aeriel felt a cold sweat cover her. "She is a liar. She will never give you back your name. "
"You are a witch," the suzerain cried. "I'll have no witches for my wife. I saw your birdshape at the window. Last time it came to you, I watched. Well," he laughed fiercely,
"it will find you no more. "
Aeriel wheeled. Outside her window, one of the villa guards sat suspended from a rope.
He reached into a sack that hung from his belt and drew out a brick. Aeriel stared as he slapped a trowel of mortar into place, fitted the brick, and reached for another.
"You will kill me," she gasped. "Brick up that vent and I will have no air. "
"I do not care," the suzerain said. "I have no more need of you. "
"Then let me go," Aeriel cried.
The suzerain laughed. "I cannot. The mistress will not allow it. "
"Kill me yourself, then, coward," she shouted.
"Ah, little witch," the suzerain replied, "you would like that, wouldn't you - to have me tear down this wall and come at you? But I have tasted enough of your magical strength.
I'll not grapple with you again. "
Outside, the guard laid the last brick in the window. All light in the room was suddenly gone, save that crack of brightness around the suzerain's eyes. She saw him hold something to the niche, begin to shove. The light was no more than a knife blade now.
Aeriel cried out, rushed at him. She heard his laughter beyond the niche.
"Farewell, little witch," the suzerain said, and fitted the wedge into place.
Aeriel stood in darkness. The cry died in her throat. The wall was sealed. She felt along it, frantically, and found the wedge closing the chink. She pushed at it, tried to lever it, but it was stuck fast.
She groped her way to where the window had been. Already the air was growing stale.
She felt the bars, the new bricks beyond. The mortar between the blocks was soft. She scratched it with her fingernails and shoved at the bricks between the bars, but they must have been braced from without, for they would not give.
Panting, gasping for breath, Aeriel sank down against the wall. She could not stand. Her limbs trembled. How much time had passed? Her head was whirling; her chest felt tight.
She pressed her cheek against the cool stone wall, staring into the airless dark.
A VERY LONG TIME LATER, SHE SAW A light. It was small, very far away -
though strangely, it shone plainly in front of the wall of the tiny cell, illuminating it. Pale yellow, like a flame - it was moving nearer, slowly growing. Then at last it stood before her, tall and flickering, and Aeriel realized it had a human shape.
"Eoduin," she gasped. "Eoduin. "
The other smiled. "You have not forgotten me in all these daymonths. "
"Eoduin," cried Aeriel. "I can't get out. "
"I cannot stay," the maiden said. "I only came to waken you. "
"Waken me?" Aeriel shook her head. "I have not slept. "
"You have," the other said, "for hours now. The last crust the guard brought you was drugged. "
Aeriel gasped for breath. "He has shut me in. . . .
"List," said Eoduin. "You are not trapped. The suzerain does not mean to let you die. He only means to frighten you. "
"The air is bad," choked Aeriel.
The maiden shook her head. "It is not. That is fear making your chest so tight. The drug has worn off. Breathe deep. "
Aeriel drew breath slowly, deeply - and strangely felt no tight band about her ribs, no more trembling in her limbs. She could breathe, and the air in the cell was cooler now, more damp.
"The mortar," said Aeriel. "It has cracked and is letting in the air. "
The other shook her head again. "The window is sealed, as is the chink. The drug in that crust was meant to make you sleep so deep you could lie sealed in this room a dozen hours and not suffocate. But you ate only a little of the crust. If this tiny room were truly sealed, you would be dead long before the suzerain came to dig you out.
"But there is a source of air to this chamber that the suzerain does not know about. This new air you feel comes from that source. You must find it. Awake; awake. Make haste, or you will lose the light. "
"Awake?" said Aeriel. "I am awake. . . . "
Eoduin was receding from her, growing smaller and more pale. "Then open your eyes. "
Aeriel blinked. Eoduin was gone, but the little cell was light still, with a dim glow - but it was white light not yellow. Even that faint illumination made her squint. Just above her, before the cell's blocked window fluttered a tiny creature no bigger than her hand.
Its body was fingerlike and soft-looking. It had no legs. Two pairs of gauzy wings, tear-shaped, gave off a clear, cool light. Each soft wingbeat intensified the glow briefly. It fluttered about the bricked window, as if searching for something.
After a time, it seemed to give up on the window, fluttered about the far corner of the cell, following cracks. It examined the blocked chink thoroughly. Aeriel tried the window and the eye space again; neither gave. The creature had no fear of her, fluttered slowly, ceaselessly about. Then it went to the earthen wall, exploring the crevices one by one.
Aeriel drew near the wall. The air in that corner seemed cooler, fresher. Standing very still, she felt a slight current against her cheek. Aeriel scrabbled up the earthen wall.
There was a vent there, somewhere.
She remembered her dustshrimp suddenly. The lampwing hovered above its niche. Aeriel gave a dismayed cry, catching sight of it, then checked herself. It was not her dustshrimp she saw, but only its shell - split down the back and empty now, as though it had simply been housing some other creature that had only now gotten free.
The lampwing circled Aeriel's head. She saw that it had many whiskers. Its eyes were set on tiny stalks. "Are you my dustshrimp?" she said softly.
The gauzy-winged thing fluttered away, back to the wall. Aeriel saw, just where ceiling and wall met, a crevice. It was only two hand spans long and half of one high, but the air flowing through it was clean. Aeriel shoved at the dirt, scooping it toward her. The lampwing fluttered about the enlarging hole.
Aeriel dug. The lampwing flitted through. Aeriel scrambled, forcing her shoulders against the give of the earth. A hard stone ceiling formed the top of the passage. Aeriel wriggled.
Echoes of sliding earth told her the space beyond was large.
The loose soil gave unexpectedly. She found herself sliding down a soft incline. She came to rest on a cool stone floor. The lampwing fluttered in the space above. Aeriel strai
ghtened, dusted the dirt from her. It took her a moment to catch her breath. Blinking, she stood up and peered around.
She stood in a natural chamber of stone. The gauzewing's light was very dim, illuminating only a small sphere of air around it. Aeriel caught glimpses of walls twenty paces distant. They looked smooth, as if water-carved, but the floor beneath her feet was dry.
The lampwing fluttered off across the chamber. Aeriel followed it. It disappeared through a slender opening in the far end of the room. Aeriel saw similar openings on either side, but the current of fresh air seemed strongest from this one. Aeriel turned herself sideways and slipped through.
A tunnel lay on the other side, narrow and dark, the walls jutting. The lampwing flitted on ahead. Aeriel followed. In time, the tunnel opened into a larger chamber. The lampwing hovered a moment, then chose an exit.
This passage was wider, but very low. Aeriel had to walk slowly, half-bent. Her back grew painful, her legs cramped. The lampwing pulled farther and farther ahead of her.
Aeriel had to trot, bent double, to catch it again.
Again the tunnel opened out, into a chamber much bigger than before. Aeriel stood upright, stretching, until her back creaked. She bent to rub her ankles and calves. The lampwing hovered overhead. She sank to her knees a moment to rest. She had not eaten since that last, drugged crust hours ago. It must be night by now, she thought. Solstar must have been long set.
The lampwing began to flutter on. It seemed to fly more urgently now. Reluctantly, Aeriel stumbled after it. Gazing at the height of the ceiling above, she had a sense of being deep underground. They would have to climb again to reach the air.
Halfway across the broad hall, she stumbled. Looking down, she saw a tiny pick, all made of pale metal, heavy enough when she picked it up, but short and squat, as if made for a hand smaller, squarer than hers.
She thrust it into the pocket of her robe and followed the lampwing through a fold in the rock. Here the tunnels changed. They seemed for the most part natural, irregular, but they ran straighter, as though widened in places. The floor seemed flatter and more smooth.
And the corridor was wide. Aeriel could stretch her arms and still not touch both walls at once. The ceiling was not high, though. She could touch it without uncrooking her arm.
The lampwing fluttered on ahead.
The floor began to slant downward. Aeriel walked with one hand trailing the wall beside her. Cross passages appeared at intervals. They, too, ran straight - like hallways in a house, or village streets. She fingered the small, heavy pick in the hem pocket of her robe, and wondered what manner of people could have lived here. What had Roshka called them? The underfolk.
With a start, she realized the feel of the stone beneath her hand had changed. Glancing at the wall, she saw carvings running in a broad band. They were all of eels: some smooth, some scaled, rilled or gilled, and some with fins. Now and again, the lampwing's light gleamed on a glass-smooth jewel forming an eye.
The band rose in arcs over the doorways she passed. After a while, the eels turned to fishes, then dainty ledge-swallows with forking tails. Later, lizards, then scarabs and crayfishes, salamanders and skinks. Tiny bats seemed to skim along the stone, their wings so delicately carved, Aeriel was afraid they would tear if she touched them.
They were all creatures that lived underground, as the underdwellers had done. But where were the underdwellers now? Gone away, the prince had said.
Not long afterward, the carvings upon the walls grew rougher and finally ceased. The tunnel slanted more sharply down, growing tortuous. Aeriel had to slow her pace. Hunger exhausted her. Fatigue weighted her limbs. Her eyes began slipping shut as she walked.
Her throat was very dry.
The lampwing, unencumbered, drew ahead. The hall curved sharply right, then left again.
Aeriel stumbled into the narrow bend, finding herself in darkness suddenly. The lampwing's light was visible only dimly beyond the bend. Aeriel heard movement ahead of her, low down in the dark. A voice, slow at first as from exhaustion, muttered,
"What's that?" Then harshly, whispered: "A light - a light!"
228 f**) A. Gathering of Gargoyles
Another voice answered, muffled, no more than a noise in the throat.
The first voice croaked, "Get up. I saw a light. "
"No light," the other muttered. "You're dozing, a dream. "
"There, there," the first voice hissed. "Around the bend. You are the one who's dozing.
Get up!"
A surprised intake of breath, the sound of something scrabbling to its feet. Aeriel was so startled, so weary, so used to moving and the slant of the floor so steep that she did not stop. She collided with something, heard a cry of alarm. She cried out herself. Something struck at her. She grabbed at it.
"What is it?" The first voice, speaking now for the first time above a whisper.
"Run, Erin! It has me by the arm - I can't get free. "
Aeriel recognized the voices then, finally. Giddiness and exhaustion welled in her. She started to laugh. Bent double, leaning upon the arm she held, she could not stop.
"No, I won't leave you," cried Erin, beginning to flail at her. "What is it - a cavern sprite?"
The three of them stumbled around the tunnel's bend into the light of the lampwing again.
The prince was dragging her, struggling to break free while the dark girl, grimacing, dazzled by the light, scratched and tore at her.
"Leave off," gasped Aeriel, breathless, releasing Roshka to catch Erin's wrists. "Leave off," she said again. "It's only me. It's Aeriel. "
The dark girl peered, then stared, stopped struggling. Roshka shielded his eyes from the light. The lampwing was paces ahead of them now.
"Aeriel," Erin whispered. "Aeriel, how?" Now it was she who clung to the fair girl's arm.
"I dug my way out of the suzerain's cell - but hurry, or we shall lose the light. "
The lampwing's glow had grown very distant and dim. They hurried down the corridor, not. speaking at first. Erin kept one hand on Aeriel's sleeve, as though afraid she might abruptly vanish.
The corridor had become completely natural now. It was narrow, full of twists. The ceiling sometimes rose in cavernous cracks. Soon they caught up with the lightbearer, and Aeriel could see her companions better. Roshka kept staring at her.
"We were trying to come to you," he stammered. "I found a tunnel once, when I was young, in one of the cellars near the kitchen. I thought the passage under the isle might lead to it. But the way kept turning, and there were so many branches. We lost all sense of the way; then our torches gave out. "
He fell silent a moment. Aeriel glanced at Erin. The dark girl walked beside her, saying nothing. She was weeping. Aeriel put one arm around her, kissed her and drew her close.
"I don't know how long we've been below," the prince said.
"Six dozen hours," said Aeriel. "Solstar is long set by now. You must be famished. "
Erin shook her head, wiping her eyes. "We have not starved. Roshka brought provisions. "
"You have food?" Aeriel cried. She felt suddenly weak. Her stomach was a knotted lump.
"The last I ate was a drugged bread crust before Solset. "
The prince lifted something he had been carrying, began to rummage in it. Aeriel had paid no attention before, but she recognized it now: the yellow silk wrapping her bandolyn. Roshka drew out two green greatfruit and a handful of leatherstalk.
"All we have left. "
Aeriel took them gratefully. The green flesh of the greatfruit was slippery and full of juice, the leatherstalk tough and sweet. Aeriel nearly choked suddenly. All that was left, Roshka had said? She snatched her pack back from him and sorted through it desperately.
She felt her bandolyn, the lump of ambergris,
the three apricok seeds----Her panic subsided as
she felt the two remaining apricoks. Ro
shka and Erin had not found them, or had left them alone. Aeriel sighed with relief. She had promised the keeper to save that fruit.
The path began to slant upward now. The way grew rough. They followed the lampwing through the rising corridors. The ceiling rose seemingly endlessly, lost in darkness overhead. Aeriel had the feeling they were higher now than at any point since entering the caves.
Their path made a sudden rise, then a sharp, close turn. The lampwing fluttered around the bend, and its light seemed suddenly to disappear. Aeriel scrambled after it, rounding the turn, and saw an archway into another corridor.
She stopped, staring. Two lights flickered in the dark ahead. She felt a rush of cool air along her cheek, heavy with the scent of forests and the night. One light held fixed, twinkling. A star.
The archway was an opening. Aeriel found herself upon a steep hillside. Forests lay below. The second light, the lampwing, fluttered on, but Erin and Roshka halted beside her. They stood a moment, gazing about them, breathing in the de-liciously redolent and heady air.
A Gathering of Gargoyles Page 12