"You have all been such a trial to me these last few dozen daymonths," she sighed, "resisting my conquest, refusing to acquiesce. I suppose I must be grateful, though: you assuaged my boredom."
Aeriel turned to see her gazing down hungrily at the prince of Avaric very far below. The White Witch smiled.
"Irrylath was the best. He was never boring. All of six years old when I procured him—too old, really, to ever come completely to heel. But that is why I loved him so. So independent! So surprising. It took me years to tame him."
A hot flame of anger rose in Aeriel. For a moment, it rivaled the warmth of the pearl. She remembered the brief glimpse the pearl had shown her: Oriencor, one fist in the young Irrylath's hair, commanding him ever so quietly, Yes, love. You will. Recklessly, Aeriel drew breath again to speak, but the other's merciless eyes turned and fixed her like a hawk's.
"I will never forgive you for taking him from me," the White Witch breathed, "even for a little time.
And I will have him back again. Before I drink his soul away, he will be mine."
Aeriel's skin flushed. "He will never belong to you again," she gasped. "He's mine. He loathes you."
Oriencor laughed. "He loves me. And I him."
"You don't," spat Aeriel. "You only want to rule him!" Memory of the lorelei's black birds tormenting her prisoners came back to Aeriel. She shuddered, sickened, and shoved the thought away. "You and your kind don't love anything. I don't think you can."
The Witch's smile soured. Her voice grew petulant, annoyed. "I loved the Ancients once," she murmured, "when I was young. I was capable of love then. But they left me."
Leaning back against the sill, studying Aeriel, Oriencor toyed with the low collar of her gown, stroking her own breastbone. Slowly, Aeriel realized what it was she fingered: a little seam running down, sewn up with silver, just like the one on Irrylath's breast when he had been a darkangel. Oriencor's bloodless lips pursed fretfully.
"It's true," she mused. "I can't love. I don't have a heart of flesh anymore. I took it out, after the Ancients deserted me, and replaced it with one of winterock."
She glanced over one shoulder. Aeriel followed her gaze. A crystal box rested in a niche across the room.
"I put the original away for safekeeping."
Warily, Aeriel eyed the box. Something dark lay inside, dimly visible through the colorless stone.
Oriencor shrugged.
"You may look at it, if you wish."
The pearl burned bright upon her brow. Aeriel felt an irresistible attraction drawing her to the box.
Slowly, she crossed the room and touched the lid. The crystal was bone chill: cold as the keep.
"Don't think you can harm it," the lorelei warned, still at the windowsill. "I'd never let you near it, if you could do it any harm."
Aeriel felt a stirring within the pearl, like something just beginning to wake—but it subsided at once.
She lifted the box's lid and halted, frowning. Nothing lay within the box but a layer of fine, dark grit.
Immediately, the pearl brightened.
"There's nothing in here," she said. "Nothing but dust."
Scowling, Ravenna's daughter bit her lip with one pointed tooth. "Won't you lie to flatter me, little sorceress?" she inquired. "Aren't you afraid of me yet?"
Aeriel turned to face her. "I'm very much afraid of you," she answered. No use to pretend otherwise.
The Ancient's daughter could read her with such ease. Still biting her lip, the White Witch smiled.
"So was Irrylath. And he said the same."
Despite the other's eyes upon her, Aeriel felt her own gaze, very gently, being directed once more to the fine sooty stuff in the bottom of the box, like ashes of the dead. Widün the pearl, something shifted again. She reached to touch the ash. It was cool and clung together like barely damp meal. Ravenna's pearl glowed. A strange, soft murmuring came into the back of Aeriel's mind. She tried to listen, but Oriencor's muttered words drowned it out.
"All the others told me what a fine heart it was, how beautifully preserved. They thought to please me.
Irrylath told me it was only wormwood. It's why he was my favorite. Of all the boys I ever made into darkangels, only Irrylath never lied."
The Witch's knifelike nails drummed the crystal of the windowsill, chipping and scoring it. They sounded like death beetles clicking in the walls. Taste it, the pearl was telling her, that I may know my daughter's heart. Almost without a thought, Aeriel touched a few grains of the Witch's dust to her tongue, and a sharp sensation went through her like a pinprick. It was the bitterest thing she had ever known. It tasted like despair. The pearl dimmed then, and its voice subsided. Aeriel forgot about it instantly as a sleeper, waking, forgets a dream. Across the room from her, Oriencor sighed.
"My heart fell away into dust long ago. I hadn't realized it would do that when I cut it out. The crystal was supposed to preserve it. Well, I was very young at sorcery then. But no matter. A heart would be too great a burden to bear with me across the Void."
Aeriel frowned, having lost the other's train of thought. Across the Void? But Oriencor only laughed and turned back to the window.
"Ah," she said softly. "So it starts."
Aeriel caught in her breath. Hastily she replaced the Witch's box in its niche and went to join Oriencor at the casement.
"Your lady's army comes forward," the lorelei murmured.
Gazing down, Aeriel saw the great crescent advancing now, comprising allies of every hue: blue Berneans, pale green Zambulans, Pirseans with coppery skin, pale Terraineans and gold-complected refugees from Avaric, the rose-skinned people of Rani and the teal-colored folk of Elver, dark Mariners, Isterners with plum-colored skin, and the cinnamon-colored wanderers of the desert lands. All at once, Aeriel understood what their yellow banner was. Above them all, her wedding sari floated, blazing in the light of Solstar.
Beside her at the window, Oriencor lifted her gaze. Winged figures—half a dozen of them— poised in the air about the keep. Smiling, she commanded them: "Begin."
12
Seventh Son
With a start, Aeriel took note for the first time of those to whom the Witch had spoken. High above the palace hovered six darkangels: manlike but deathly pallid of skin. Their eyes had no color; their flesh was all fallen in. They were bloodless, heartless, soulless things. The dozen black wings upon the back of each icarus thrashed in a furious, silent storm. At Oriencor's signal, precisely as hawks, they turned and fell through the air toward the approaching army below.
Aeriel saw the distant Irrylath unsheathe his Edge Adamantine. Behind him, Syllva's arm swept up, then dropped. The yellow banner dipped, and with a shout, the Istern and Westron troops surged to meet the Witch's host upon the shore. Aeriel saw the winged Ions taking to the air, unbridled Avarclon among them. With Irrylath astride him, the starhorse sprang aloft, his silver wings flashing as the darkangels swept lower. Then the two armies came together, and all was a wash of confusion.
How long she stood watching, Aeriel had no notion. Solstar seemed to stand still in the sky. The pearl brought her snatches and glimpses of battle, far more vivid and detailed than if she had watched with eyes alone: two of the Witch's creatures locked in combat with a man of Elver, a girl of Zambul and her companion fighting a cluster of eyeless trolls with daggers. She saw the Lady Syllva surrounded by her bowwomen, harassed by a relentless swarm of black birds. Despite the rhuks, the Istern women sent volley after volley of arrows over their own forces' heads into the midst of the enemy beyond. Halfway across the field, the Ma'ambai and other wanderers of the dunes wielded their walking sticks, engaged in furious battle with the Witch's spotted jackals.
The field spread out below Aeriel like a great patternless sea of animate beads, surging and breaking against itself in waves. Yet while Syllva's fighters could act only individually, following as best they could the shouted orders of their commanders and the blare of warhorns, the Witch's forces were much more tightly controlled, despite Aeriel's being able to discern among them no apparent communication. She wondered how they knew where to go, what to do.
Soon the pale girl found herself trembling as she began to observe a pattern in the shifting tapestry below. Over and over, she saw contingents of Syllva's forces preparing to close in on pockets of the foe—yet almost inevitably, the enemy pulled back and escaped, though they could not possibly have seen the closing trap from their position on the ground. Abruptly, Aeriel became aware of Oriencor whispering.
"Right turn, forward, all of you. Hurry! Hack your way through or you'll be cut off. Captain of rhuks, take wing. Harry the bowwomen. Wheel, hard to the right, left flank. Trolls, forward, now...."
The Witch's eyes were riveted, her concentration fierce. She was not watching single fighters as, in the beginning, Aeriel had done. Of that Aeriel grew more and more sure. The White Witch was watching the pattern—no, she was weaving the pattern! The pale girl listened in growing horror. Could Oriencor really be controlling every warrior in her huge warhost? Were they all her catspaws—was her power so great? Staring down at the battlefield, Aeriel felt cold panic nearly overwhelm her.
Gradually, unwillingly, Syllva's troops were losing ground. Over their heads wheeled Irrylath, shouting orders, sounding his warhorn, directing reinforcements wherever need was greatest. His bridleless mount, the Avarclon, dashed foes to the ground and skewered them with his horn. The litde ones, he caught in his teeth. Horse and rider seemed tireless, plunging and striking again and again till the Witch's creatures fled before them. Yet step by hard-fought step, the lorelei's vast hoard was forcing the smaller army back, crushing the wings of the crescent, crowding the allies so that they had no room to turn or swing their weapons.
Irrylath called to his steed to take him higher, surveying the fray. Below him, Sabr and her bandits batded, trying to break clear of the surrounding vise. Dirks and half-swords flashing, they made short, ferocious charges to drive the enemy back. A swarm of trolls closed in suddenly behind Sabr, severing her from the main body of her cavalry. Her bodyguard wheeled and hacked, hard-pressed.