"Whereafter shall commence
such a cruel, sorcerous war
To wrest recompense
for a land leaguered sore.
With a broadsword bright burning,
a shadow black as night
From exile returning
shall champion the fight
For love of one above who, flag unfurled,
lone must stand,
The pearl of the soul of the world
in her hand.
When Winterock. to water
falls flooding, foes to drown,
Ravenna's own daughter
shall kindle the crown."
Silence. No sound in the tent but the fizz of lampwicks and the night wind sighing. Her brother Roshka eyed her uncertainly. Syllva stood mute beside her Istern sons. The bewildered sentries glanced at one another. Then she heard Talb the Mage chuckle and Pendarlon begin to purr. But her gaze remained on Irrylath.
"Oh, husband," she breathed, "believe in me."
Coming forward, he knelt before the flame that Erin held. His sword arm seemed nearly recovered now, for with it, he reached toward Aeriel.
"I do," he whispered, "for it is you. Forgive my doubting."
His hand passed through the flame, without harm this time. She experienced a flickering, and the odd feeling of something broad and insubstantial passing through her, but then it was gone, and her vision of Irrylath and the rose silk tent steadied again. Sabr had come to stand beside the prince. She touched his shoulder, mistrust plain upon her face.
"Cousin," she warned. "How can you be sure? We have known for months that Aeriel is lost—yet now this apparition claims it is not so! Dare you trust the rime that she has given you?"
The prince rose suddenly and turned on her. "Unhand me," he spat, his voice like burning oil. "It was you I let convince me that Aeriel was lost, you I let persuade me to turn from her memory! We have dallied here at desert's edge uncounted hours on your advisement. This is Aeriel. I know her. Do not presume to advise me further, queen of thieves!"
His tone was savage, his expression furious. Aeriel felt an ugly little thread of satisfaction run through her.
"My thought was for you," Sabr cried, stumbling back from him as though she had been struck. Her face held a look of desperate betrayal. "Always and ever for you."
Turning, the prince's cousin fled, disappearing into the night. Irrylath watched her go, his expression hard, full of fury still. It was the Lady Syllva who spoke at last, coming forward to touch the prince's arm.
"You are too hard, my son," she reproved him sternly. "Too hard by half. Aeriel is your wife, but Sabr is your cousin still, and a commander in my warhost—your equal in rank. What she says is true: she thinks only of you. She has been the one to lead our desert trek, keeping our forces together against desertion and despair, and not two daymonths past, it was she alone that stood between you and your own dagger."
The prince glared at the Lady, but made no reply. Aeriel put one hand to her temple. Her head was spinning. A heavy weariness had begun to steal over her. She had not realized the effort that speaking through the sword required. Perception through it was much more intense than through the pearl, arduous even, sapping her energy. Its strange sensation of heatless burning had hollowed her.
"I must leave you," she said unsteadily. Irrylath and the others turned.
"No!" the prince began, reaching for her again. "Don't go."
She shook her head. "I must. Spanning the distance between us is difficult… and I have Ravenna's task to fulfill."
"Aeriel," cried Irrylath. "Stay. Stay."
Again she shook her head. She must be gone, at once. The strain was growing dangerous.
"Sheathe the sword, Erin," she whispered. "Be quick."
Irrylath was reaching for her. "Don't—"
"Look for me at the Witch's Mere. Erin!" Aeriel hissed.
"Farewell," the dark girl whispered. "And goodspeed."
In one swift motion, she sheathed the sword, and the sensation of draining ceased. Spent, Aeriel sank to her knees. The Waste stretched flat, grey, and broken around her, misty by pearllight. Her eyelids strayed shut. Hours. It would take hours for the pearl to restore her. She must guard her strength in future. As fatigue dragged fiercely at her, she shook her head. Sleep—she needed sleep. Aeriel lay down upon the cracked and bitter surface of the Waste. The pearl brought her only a faint echo of Irrylath's distant, despairing cry.
"Aeriel!"
It was the last she heard before falling headlong into troubled dreams.
10
Winterock
The nightmare enveloped her: the prince of Avaric falling from the back of his winged steed.
Dreaming, Aeriel tried to reach out, to reach him, but she could not move. Cold crystal encased her.
Frozen, all she could do was watch, shuddering, as Irrylath plunged headfirst through empty air toward roiling nothingness below. I should have left you your wings, she thought wildly, despairing. His cry rang in her ears:
"Aeriel!"
Abruptly she woke. Something huge and scaly crouched beside her, picking at her gown with its knifelike claws. With a scream she started up, scrambling back—then stopped herself. The creature before her was not the great monstrous thing she had thought at first, but small and covered with mangy grey down. Illusion cloaked it in a phantom shape, but the pearl now showed her its real form: a long-limbed ratlike thing.
Aeriel struck at it with the flat of her hand. It chittered, blinking at her with bright red eyes before scuttling away. Surely it belonged to the Witch. Aeriel scrambled to her feet and started off again. She felt stronger now—a trace wan yet, but by and large, the pearl had restored her.
Through Erin, she sensed the army, many miles away, breaking camp and proceeding with all speed toward the Mere. Catching a glimpse of Irrylath as he marshaled his mother's Istern forces, Aeriel felt relief flooding her to find him safe still, despite her dream. Sabr rode at the head of her Westron troops, apart from him. Though she sometimes gazed in his direction, the prince refused her so much as a glance.
The sight now gave Aeriel litde joy. Sabr's stricken face after her cousin's rebuff hours earlier had soured any sense of triumph.
Often, as she journeyed, Aeriel cupped one hand to her brow, hoping somehow to reach into the pearl with her senses and use its sorcery to help her unravel the mystery of Ravenna's cryptic instructions: Crush the Witch's army. Destroy her darkangels… and put the pearl into her hand. But how? How? Surely somewhere within the pearl the answer must lie. But all her efforts proved in vain.
The Ancient jewel remained opaque to her, its powers beyond her grasp, and its gifts—of light, nourishment, heightened perception—always unbidden, arriving without summons.
Tempted nearly to despair, Aeriel could only walk on. The parched ground soon grew more broken, cut by dry riverbeds. No plants grew but thirsty, withered scrub. The Waste was more desolate than any place she had ever known. Even the most drought-stricken lands of Westernesse could not compare.
And the Waste was full of the Witch's little nightmare creatures. Cloaked in illusory shape, all appeared at first glance to be monsters. But the pearl soon penetrated their guises, revealing them for the mere vermin that they were. It seemed they could hide anywhere, in the dead scrub, in the cracks.
Initially, they dodged her gaze so that Aeriel caught only glimpses. Soon, however, they grew bolder—until before many hours she had a whole raft of them dogging her across the Waste.
Besides the long-legged rat-creatures, whose great protruding front teeth met like those of a horse's skull, she saw odd molelike beasts with dusty, spotted fur, disguised by witchery to appear like ogres.
Sometimes little snakes no thicker than her smallest finger hissed at her, miming basilisks. Once or twice a speckled thing resembling a huge moth fluttered after her till she swatted at it. Then it buzzed, a mere bottfly, and shivered away.
All of them had red orbs, featureless as glass. They were the Witch's eyes, keeping watch on her, Aeriel felt sure. Whenever she paused to rest, they crept closer, stealing up behind her to catch hold of her robe in their little teeth. Though she could neither ignore them nor drive them far away, Ravenna's pearl enabled her to see their true forms beneath the Witch's illusory guises. Plainly intended to terrify, they annoyed her instead. She found their constant presence wearing, but not unnerving.
The stars above wheeled ever so slowly. She knew that she had been walking half the month-long night. Irrylath and the distant army continued on their convergent path with hers, halting only each dozen hours for food and a few hours' rest. Aeriel herself felt no need now to sleep. In truth, she preferred not, considering what might come upon her unawares.
She reached the cliffs so abruptly that they took her by surprise. One moment, all was silent around her, save for the soughing of a slight, bitter wind and the scrabbling of the phantom creatures. The next, she heard jackals crying—their song floating eerily on the air—and realized what the maze of canyons opening before her must be: the jackal cliffs that never released any wayfarer they swallowed. At the heart of them lay the Witch's Mere.
Aeriel halted, listening to the long, ululating wail of the Witch's dogs. Yips, barks, then silence for a few heartbeats. A single cry rose, clear and falling, to be joined by another voice, then another, and another yet. Abruptly, they stilled, to be followed by silence again. The loathsome creatures clustering about her were growing impatient. Some of them scrabbled ahead, then turned to twitter at her. Unseen jackals sang and wuthered on the wind. Realizing that once she entered, there could be no turning back, Aeriel stepped into the labyrinth.
How long she wandered, she had no way to tell. Only a ribbon of sky showed overhead. Without a horizon, she could not judge how far the stars had turned. The pearl chose her way, distinguishing false trails from true and disregarding illusory walls meant to confuse and conceal the path. An unexpected sense of loss overwhelmed her when she discovered she could no longer sense where the army was. The twisting canyons seemed to bar the pearl's link to the dark girl with the sword.