A luminous figure resembling a woman of Zambul came to a halt not ten paces from them. The sparkling fog swirled and thickened all around. As the spirit gazed at them, the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly in the beginning of a smile. Then she lifted her arms and arose, right in front of them, elongating and attenuating as she ascended.
The mist closed denser and denser before lifting suddenly without dissipating. Gazing upward, Aeriel saw that the stars were now completely obscured. She could no longer see the confluence of souls ascending, caught only glimmers of them in the distance, like flashes of light. The electrical quality of the air intensified. She heard a long, low rumble she could not identify. More flashes. Another rumbling.
Something wet and cold struck her skin.
She flinched in surprise, felt Irrylath do the same. The shock repeated itself: a spattering of droplets.
The scent of water pervaded the air. The pattering drops grew larger and more numerous. They began to fall harder, more steadily. A wet breeze rose and slapped at them. The sensation was cold, thrilling, strange. She huddled against the shelter of Irrylath's body. The sound of falling water drummed against the night, marked by low booming and glimmers of light.
"What is it?" she exclaimed.
"Water from heaven," he answered wonderingly, holding out one hand to catch the falling drops.
"Such as fell in Ancient times—a dozen thousand daymonths past."
The water came in wind-whipped spatters now, gusting and unabating. Aeriel cupped her own hands and brought them to her lips. The taste was cool and sweet, full of air and minerals. She held her joined palms up to Irrylath and let him, too, drink. Still clasping her to him, he kissed her hands.
"The drought of the White Witch is broken," he told her. "It's rain."
15
Rime's End
Inward voice whispered. The pale girl shifted, dozing. Her husband lay sleeping beside her, his breaths even and deep. The strange pattering of rain drummed lightly now. Their makeshift tent rustled gently with the soft, constant wind. Aeriel pressed closer to Irrylath, too drowsy to listen to any sounds but these.
After the flood, Irrylath had made them this small pavilion out of her wedding sari. Gathering poles from the surrounding flotsam, he had set them upright in the soft ground, then draped and wound the yards and yards of yellow stuff about their frame. The magical airthin cloth kept out the damp. Their clothing dried quickly, and the ground over which their shelter stood soon, inexplicably, became dry.
The quiet murmur came again: Aeriel, awake. Still half-dozing, she forgot it the moment she opened her eyes. Pillowing her head on one arm, she gazed at Irrylath. For the first time since she had known him, his face was at rest—no longer troubled by the Witch's dreams. Smiling now, she remembered the heat of his body these few hours past: what she had hungered for all these day-months, ever since their marriage day.
"No longer my husband only in name," she murmured, kissing him as she reached to pull a few stray strands of hair back from his lyon-scored face.
Irrylath shifted, sighing, deeply asleep. He never roused. Only a little while ago, he had clasped her to him with such urgency and passion—as though some intervention loomed to part them, as though only a little time remained. Aeriel laughed, amazed at her own unaccustomed happiness. Here beneath their wedding silk, she gazed at her husband with the greatest attention, a lover's gaze. Every inch of him was beautiful to her.
Aeriel. The soft utterance came again, more insistently. Aeriel sat up with a start. She cast about her, baffled, but she and Irrylath were alone. The voice—eerily familiar—seemed to come from the air.
"Where are you?" she whispered.
Here, the answer came. Within. I am within you now.
Aeriel felt a tremor, something stirring in her blood. The scent came to her suddenly of Ancient flowers, dusky and sweet. Astonishment washed over her. She knew the voice.
"Ravenna," she breathed, shaken. When the pearl had shattered in Oriencor's hand, Aeriel had thought the Ancientlady—surely then if not before—utterly destroyed.
The still, inward voice seemed to chuckle. Hardly the whole of what Ravenna comprised, it murmured, but a little of her, yes. Call me Ravenna, if you will: I am part of what she was.
Aeriel struggled to catch her breath, to take it in. Overwhelming remorse seized her suddenly.
Why do you sorrow? Ravenna within her asked. The war is won.
Aeriel's breast heaved, but it was with dry sobs only. She felt the white marks in the shape of stars left upon her eyelids by the Witch's touch.
"Because I have failed you," she whispered,"and all the world. What matter that the war is won, if all the world is lost?"
Lost? the voice of the pearlstuff in her blood exclaimed. My daughter's evil is at an end, child—
her drought broken, her creatures drowned— and all my rime has come to pass…
"Except the last!" Aeriel exclaimed. Their shelter sighed in the gentle breeze. She gazed about her at the walls of silk, at their scattered garments, at Irrylath. Despair tasted like wormwood in her mouth.
"The last line of the prophecy is not fulfilled. Your gift is scattered to the winds. No daughter remains to heal the world and claim the crown. All's lost."
Not lost, the Ancient's voice within her whispered. It need not be lost.
Aeriel shook her head. How many more generations had this vast war won for the planet—a handful?
A score? So pitifully few it scarcely mattered. Without Ravenna's daughter to guide the healing of the world, Aeriel thought bitterly, everything she and Irrylath had struggled for was vainglory. In the face of the all-devouring entropy, it would all wind down to nothing in the end.
That need not be, the inner voice murmured, and Aeriel realized belatedly that the pearlstuff in her blood could read her thoughts whether or not she spoke them aloud. The entropy need not prevail.
Another might gather my scattered sorcery and heal the world in Oriencor's stead.
Aeriel blinked. Her own white radiance lit the enclosed space softly.
"I don't know what you mean," she breathed.
Be my successor, child, Ravenna's voice whispered. A little of my power is in you now, enough to guide you in gathering the rest.
"But," she protested, dazed, "I'm not your daughter. The rime says—"
Are you not? the other asked gently. Did I not tell you in NuRavenna that you and many others of your young race are descendants of my Ancient one, many generations removed? The world is yours now: your birthright, your inheritance. We Ancients are no more. Become my daughter even as Irrylath was once the Witch's son. Accept the crown of the world's heir, Aeriel. I've no one left but you.
Aeriel sat silent, unable to take it in, to fathom it. "I can't…" she stammered. "I don't know how."
You underestimate yourself Enough of me remains to show you how to start. It will be a long and mighty task, but not beyond you— with my aid.
Vistas unfolded before her, misty with possibility still: Ravenna's sorcery reclaimed and the world made whole again. Aeriel blinked in surprise, beholding, until she realized that the view came to her through the remnants of the pearl.
But we must haste, the still, quiet voice urged her. Better to go at once, while still he sleeps.
The pale girl frowned, gazing at Irrylath. "Go?"
The pearlstuff in her blood swirled restlessly. Yes. Have you not understood what I have been telling you? This task will consume you. You must leave all else behind.
Aeriel drew back, a chill breathing through her. "Leave Irrylath?" she cried.
The voice within her subsided. At last it said, At times we all must give up what we hold most dear for the greater good. I gave up my daughter, all my sorcery, my very life—
"But Irrylath is my husband," Aeriel exclaimed. "We've only just found one another…"
The whole world needs you, Aeriel, the pearl's voice answered sadly. And he is only one man.
New images unfolded before her mind's eye: the planet dying.
"No," Aeriel whispered, "no!"
Anguish racked her. She wished that she might turn away, ignore the knowledge, refuse the gift— but the Ancient sorcery was already inside her, and there was nowhere she might turn.
"Irrylath needs me!" she tried desperately.
I am truly sorry, the pearl's voice murmured, but I have allowed you even these brief hours together at great cost. Time presses. You must not ask more.
Aeriel gazed down at her prince. Gently, she cupped his chin in her hand and, still deeply sleeping, he turned his face as though to seek her touch. An unutterable weight descended upon her. Her breast felt heavy and sore, and she tasted the Witch's heart upon her tongue. Aeriel cradled her husband's cheek, unwilling to let him go.
"He saved me," she whispered, remembering her terror of the flood. "I can't swim. I'd have drowned when the palace fell if he had not…"
Drowned? the voice in her blood exclaimed. Nonsense, child. You can't drown. This new body I gave you is not so easily destroyed.
A thin thread of cold wound through Aeriel. She shivered hard. "What do you mean?" she asked, baffled. "What new body—I don't understand."
The pin, child, the pearl's voice insisted. Did you not guess? The White Witch fashioned it so that it could not be removed without killing you.
Aeriel's eyes widened. Her free hand flew to the place behind her ear where the pin had been. She felt no soreness there, no scar. "But you plucked it out," she gasped. "You pulled it free—"
Yes, and most of you perished in the flash. I had to rebuild the greater part— though I saved all that I could: your heart, your eyes. Your mind and soul, of course.
With a strangled cry, Aeriel snatched her hand from the sleeping prince's cheek, recoiling in horror—not of him, but of herself. In numb dismay, she stared at the body into which she had awakened feeling so strangely new, in the City of Crystalglass, daymonths ago.
"What thing have you made of me?" she gasped. Her eyes returned to Irrylath. He had been a demon once, in Avaric, and she had made him mortal again. She herself had been mortal then—but what was she now? "A monster…" she choked.