The Pearl of the Soul of the World

Many rooms flanked the corridor—all empty now. Unbidden, the pearl's sight revealed to her more than she wanted to know about the past of those deserted chambers. Here the Witch's black birds had flocked. There she had built her darkangels' wings, and in another, gilded their hearts with lead. The pearl observed the palace's memories with relentless dispassion. Shuddering, the pale girl covered her face with her hands. How could any mortal being have become so corrupt? Could anyone capable of such evil ever be redeemed? What might the pearl of the soul of the world become in the hands of such a one?

And yet, she remembered the Ancient's words, she is my daughter still.

Aeriel came to a room which halted her. Without looking, she sensed what lay beyond the door: a siege as white as salt, such as a queen might sit enthroned upon. The pearl imparted to her a glimpse from the chamber's past: the young Irrylath, not yet a darkangel, brought to his knees before that siege. The silver chain encircling his wrist was grasped in the hand of the tall, seated woman before him. She leaned forward, her face bowed from view. Her other hand was a fist in the young man's hair. Cruelly, she forced his head back, bending to whisper in his ear:

"Yes, love. You will."

Aeriel cried out. The sound shivered down the length of the empty hall, rebounding and magnifying into a louder and louder shriek, until it seemed that not one voice but many screamed. Aeriel ducked, covering her ears. She had no idea of the context of that scene—what had happened before it or followed after—and little cared. Her attention remained fixed on the horror of a single point in time: of the young Irrylath defying his mistress, and the White Witch slowly, inexorably—relishing every moment of it—breaking him to her will.

Aeriel gasped for breath and bit off her cries.

"No," she told herself sternly. "No!"

That glimpse which the pearl had brought her came from the past. It was not happening now. Half breathless, she uncovered her ears and heard the many bladethin echoes dying.

" Love, " she whispered, remembering the lorelei's words to Irrylath. Shaking, Aeriel gazed around her at the cold, white walls. "Nothing in this frozen place has anything to do with love!"

Grimly, she padded forward. The path wound on and on, sometimes downward, sometimes level.

Eventually, she began to travel upward again. It must be long past Solstarrise, she realized, no longer night outside. No inkling of dawn had reached her before, but the light was much brighter since she had once more risen above the dark waterline. She had the sense of being far higher now than when she had entered the palace.

"How long have I been wandering here?" she wondered.

A broad, straight corridor stretched before her. She halted, trembling, dimly aware suddenly of what lay ahead of her and not wanting to go on. She stood a long time, reaching out through the senses of the pearl, trying desperately to find another path—to no avail. Here lay the only path. Aeriel drew a ragged breath.

Quickly, she forced herself ahead down the long corridor. Human figures stood embedded in the walls on either side of her. None of them moved. Still as stone every one, caught fast in the indescribably cold crystal. Their eyes were all closed, all their limbs and faces frozen in attitudes of horror, struggle, revulsion, and despair. And yet, even so, the pearl told her, they were alive. Were they even physical bodies at all, or were they souls—captured by the Witch and her darkangels but not yet devoured?

Unnerved, Aeriel ran on.

The corridor ended in an open archway. A blaze of Solstarlight lay beyond. She saw a window, unshuttered, unglazed. The wind blowing in off the Waste was stiff, made thin by altitude. Panting, her breath swirling in clouds, Aeriel halted in the wash of sunlight streaming in. Its warmth felt delicious. She savored it. The lateness of the hour outside dismayed her: Solstar hung low. She had entered the Witch's keep before dawn.

"There you are," said a cold, clear voice. It rang like crystal, like a bell. Like a darkangel's voice: rich, compelling, clear. "At last. Well. Through my palace of Winterock, it is not always easy to find one's way."

Aeriel could not tell if the word named the palace itself or the frigid stone from which it was formed.

The speaker laughed, deeply, languidly.

"But I never doubted you would find me, little sorceress."

11

Heart of Dust

The chill that poured through Aeriel as she listened to that voice vanquished the warmth of Solstar.

Turning, she saw the White Witch standing not far from the casement: her vantage from which to watch the coming battle, Aeriel guessed. Across the small chamber, Oriencor appraised her coolly. She was very tall, almost as tall as Ravenna, but whereas the Ancient had been a dark lady, all dusk and black and indigo, her daughter the White Witch was fair.

Her skin was as pale as Irrylath's had been when Aeriel had known him as a darkangel: bone white without any rose to the cheeks or lips, no blush of blood. Her frigid breath did not cloud the air. Her features were sharp and angular, coldly beautiful, like a merciless statue. Only her eyes had any color, pale green. A sorceress's eyes. The Witch's hair was long and white, straighter than Ravenna's. Colorless filament. Darkangel hair.

Her lips were thin, bowed, curling upward at the corners in malevolent amusement. She was wearing a long white gown that fell close about her figure, clinging to it. It was sewn with little bits of things: dogs'

teeth, cut diamonds, and freshwater pearls—twisted and baroque in shape, not round. Cats' claws and buttons of bone. Aeriel could not see the lorelei's feet. Her gown dragged the floor. Her white nails were very long and keen. Before her Aeriel felt stupid, clumsy, weak —as though the other could, with but a glance, read her to the heart.

Shivering, she answered, "I am not a sorceress."

The White Witch smiled. Her teeth were pointed, sharp as little spades.

"Perhaps not," she said, drawing nearer. The cold breathed from her as from a high mountainside in shadow. "But you have been a great difficulty to me. And you have lately visited my mother in NuRavenna. Tell me, is she well?"

"She's dead," said Aeriel, shaking, refusing to retreat.

She remembered vividly—the last breath of the Andentlady fading and the dark man bending his grief-stricken face to her hair. Ravenna's fair daughter laughed, wholly self-possessed, a bell-like, mocking sound.

"You are so earnest," she sighed. "I should not play with you. I know that she is dead. I saw the beacon of her funeral fire."

Aeriel stared at her. The coldness with which the other spoke astonished her. One swansdown eyebrow lifted.

"Do I shock you, little Aeriel, rejoicing in my own mother's death?"

Aeriel saw that one of the trinkets stitched to her gown was the mummified foot of some very small white creature: a lizard, a mole? Oriencor clenched one dagger-nailed hand. Her fingers were webbed, Aeriel realized suddenly. Gills slitted behind her ears.

"Fool. She could have made herself immortal, like me—if she had dared. Now her own mortality has claimed her at last, and the world is mine."

She spoke with such unflinching authority that Aeriel's hand went to the jewel at her brow, seeking reassurance—then froze there as the lorelei fastened her glass-green gaze upon the pearl.

"My mother gave you a gift, I see."

Terror swept through Aeriel as she realized that very soon she must give up the pearl. She had worn Ravenna's jewel so long she had almost forgotten existence without it. And yet, she told herself sternly, the pearl did not belong to her. It was meant for the world's heir. Still, the thought of parting with it was agony.

"A boon," she managed at last.

"A message capsule, by the look," the Witch remarked, as though not greatly interested. "After all these years, what could my mother possibly have to say to me?"

Aeriel shook her head. How to explain? Where to begin? She found her tongue growing thick and awkward in her mouth. Touching the pearl still, she could only manage, "Ravenna bade me bring it to you."

Oriencor shrugged. "How charming. But you keep it awhile, little sorceress, lest the cold kill you too soon. Time enough for me to savor my mother's dying breath after the battle." She smiled her wolfish smile. "After I've slaughtered all your people and devoured their souls."

Aeriel's knees grew weak. The other's voice was at once lovely and terrible, seductive to listen to.

Aeriel felt the moment—her chance to confront and persuade the Witch—slipping away. She drew breath to make some desperate last appeal—but a soft, inner voice intervened. Let it go, the voice murmured, already fading. Now is not the time. Not yet, but soon.

"Come," the lorelei said. "Watch the battle with me. It is about to be joined."

She beckoned Aeriel to a window. The sill there dripped with water in the sunlight's blaze.

"See them below us," Oriencor murmured. "Your forces and mine. All assembled. All arrayed. The victory will be mine, of course. It will be a pleasure to watch. I know so few pleasures these days. Watch with me."

Aeriel saw armies on the strand below. The small chamber in which she and Oriencor stood was indeed at a great height. The Witch's brood were massed upon the shore: jackals and weaselhounds and black birds; great, hunched creatures of vaguely human shape; and thin, wraithlike figures—rank upon rank of them, so many she could not count. The black waters of the Mere behind them teemed with more. Aeriel spotted the mudlick, bobbing near shore, and deeper out, circling the palace, the two enormous wakes of the Witch's water dragons.

Syllva's forces faced the Mere, fanned out in a crescent. Aeriel's heart lifted at the sight of them—only to tighten suddenly as, for the first time, she perceived how pitifully small their numbers were in comparison to the Witch's vast horde. Above the allied warhost, a long yellow banner turned and fluttered on the breeze. The Lady stood foremost, surrounded by her bowwomen. Irrylath rode nearby, astride the winged Avarclon. Marelon, the Lithe Serpent of the Sea-of-Dust, undulated huge and vermilion, her vast coils lost among the throng. Erin stood farther back, the lyon Pendarlon pacing beside her. Aeriel saw the dark girl touch his mane. Beside her at the windowsill, Oriencor stirred. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">