Chapter 11. Return
Aeriel walked. Swiftly, determinedly, she padded over the coarse, crusted sand. Her desert staff made a soft, scrunching sound as its tapered heel bit into the sand. She walked until the sun had fallen four degrees in the heavens, and when she could step no farther, let her knees buckle and lay face down in the trough between two dunes.
Sleep enveloped her at once and she dreamed of the darkangel, saw him snapping the bone of a bat's wing between his teeth while telling her, "You are even more sport to bait than these. " Aeriel felt a sharp pang from the scar on her neck and stirred in her sleep. In dreams she heard the duarough's voice crying, "Haste, daughter, and find the Avarclon,"
though she herself protested, "I have not yet said that I shall help you. "
Hollow-eyed, the wraiths drifted before her, moaning, "Aeriel, Aeriel will not help us!"
She heard her own voice cry out, "Eoduin! Which one of you is Eoduin?" Then she heard the gargoyles howling and rattling their chains as Orroto-to assured her, "Peace, little pale one. Everyone is free," and the Pendarlon whispered, "I cannot bear you any farther. You must go on alone. "
Aeriel awoke with a start to find herself lying alone in the empty desert. Solstar hung barely five degrees from setting. The forward edge of one drifting dune had eased gently over her feet and legs. She shoved herself to her knees and hastily batted away the soft weight of sand. Only then did she realize she was shivering. Her bones felt cold; her muscles ached. She chafed her chill limbs stiffly a moment and wondered if the vampyre would strangle her the moment she returned. Then she chewed a little of the food from her pouch, though she had no stomach for it, struggled to her feet, and started off again. It was not until many hours later - too late to retrace her steps - that she realized she had left her walking stick behind.
She reached the borderland just as Solstar touched the east horizon. She halted on the last sandy downslope, leaned back against the crusted duneside a few moments to rest.
Beyond lay the loose, grey soil and scrub of the wasteland bordering the plains. The sun on her left was already half-hidden behind the eastern steeps by the time she roused herself. Solstar gradually slipped behind the mountains and the grey scrubland turned black. Aeriel walked on through the pale earth-shine; the great star had been a long time set before she allowed herself again to rest.
The stars wheeled, slowly, halfway round the sky. The Planet waxed, earthblue, toward midnight, gradually waned, and the wound on her forearm mended in a long, pale scar.
The fortnight passed. Aeriel trudged and rested, ate, slept, then arose again and continued on - always south. Visions of the darkangel invaded her dreams.
It was in the grey dark before dawn that Aeriel first made out the icarus* castle, mounted on its mountain jutting up from the plain. She made for it steadily, more numb than afraid, and by the time Solstar had risen, she had reached the cliff's foot. The gargoyles spotted her as the light grew bright enough. They began wailing horribly, as they had wailed when the darkangel had first brought her to keep. They sounded starved and desperate. She knew no one had fed them while she was gone.
She found the stairs cut into the cliff face, the uneven narrow stone steps leading down from the garden. Aeriel tucked the velvet pouch beneath the neck of her robe and began to ascend. The gargoyles continued their screaming. She knew the vampyre must have heard them by now.
Suddenly, she saw him. He stood at garden's edge, at the head of the stairs, fists upon his hips as he watched her. The paleness of him gleamed softly against the black, starred sky.
One of his wings was hanging askew, she noticed suddenly, dangled awkwardly amid the rest. Aeriel remembered the darkangel's slow, limping retreat when last she had seen him, and realized he must have broken this pinion in the struggle with the Pen-darlon.
The icarus did not fly now, but let her come. She was too far from him yet to see his face.
She studied her feet as she mounted the slick, unrailed steps instead - one stair, two, twelve, twenty. She lost her count at thirty-seven.
Then abruptly, he stood before her. Aeriel halted on the last, top step; no more lay beyond. The vampyre blocked her path into the garden. She stood barely a pace from him, not looking at him. Her pulse was pounding from the long, steep climb.
The vampyre said, "So you have come back. " Aeriel felt a dull surprise dart through her.
His voice had lost its bell-like resonance. It sounded hollow now, grating. How ever could I have believed that voice beautiful? thought Aeriel. The vampyre demanded,
"Why?"
Aeriel struggled to find her tongue. "I could not stay away," she managed at last - that was true enough - and found that though she was yet very afraid of him, she was no longer powerless to answer him.
He made a sound in his throat then that might have been acknowledgment, perhaps indifference or contempt. He said nothing for a moment, as if thinking, then drew breath suddenly. His words, when they came, sounded oddly agitated. "I knew you would return. All along I knew. That is why I did not bother to retrieve you from the Pendar-lon when he so impudently snatched you from me. " She watched his white, fisted fingers clenching and struggling against his palms. "I might have brought you back anytime I wished. " His tone grew tighter, lighter, yet sounded at the same time strangely unsure.
"But I knew you would be back soon or late. I let you return of your own, that you might see for yourself no one may defy me. "
Aeriel said nothing. She could taste the falseness of his words. It was cowardice that had caused him to give her up to the Pendarlon - so much she was able to see even as she had lain wounded along her rescuer's back. Aeriel snorted, very softly, stared at the darkangel's feet: cowardice alone.
He said nothing more. She dared not glance up to see, but he seemed to be looking at her, studying her. Suddenly he put his hands upon her shoulders. Her knees went weak. "If you kill me now. . . ," she started in a rush; her voice shook - but the words died on her lips when she raised her head to speak, and beheld the darkangeFs face for the first time in many day-months.
Strangely, it had no power over her. His eyes were the same colorless crystal as before, his complexion white as ash; the leaden necklace still circled his throat. But he was no longer fair to look upon: across one cheek were the four long, bloodless slashes the Pendarlon had dealt him. They had not healed in all this time. The left shoulder of his garment hung in ribbons, and through the rips she saw the white, unbleeding wounds of his flesh.
He ignored her words, and she realized his gesture had not been intended as a threat.
"You have grown, girl, since last I saw you. " His tone was quieter now, almost curious.
"You are no longer so bony. One may even tell you are a wench beneath that rag. " The coldness of his palms numbed her shoulders. "And the sun," the vampyre mused, "has bleached your skin and hair. Perhaps the desert life agrees with you. "
He slid his hands upward from her shoulders and Aeriel felt herself pale. Surely now he meant to strangle her - but he only placed his hands on either side of her face. Her cheeks stung with the chill.
"I had not known you had such eyes," the ica-rus was saying. "They are emerald. That is a rare color for eyes. " He had called them fig-green once, thought Aeriel. The darkangel smiled, a coldly amused smile. "Do you know, I well believe you may be almost prettier now than was my last wife? She was a darksome thing, hair like black silk. " Aeriel closed her eyes at the thought of Eoduin. "You were with her when I came upon her," the vampyre said. "Ah, how I thought you ugly then. "
Aeriel opened her eyes and shuddered, looking at his torn face. The slashes of his cheek gapped and seamed shut when he spoke.
The vampyre grew uneasy beneath her gaze, shifted his stance. "What are you staring at?" he muttered.
Aeriel felt a sudden, inexplicable pity welling up in her, like that she had felt, when first she saw them, for the gargoyles and t
he wraiths. She did not realize she had reached to touch his wounds until she saw her hand upon his cheek. "Do they hurt you?" she asked him.
The vampyre dropped his icy hands from her face, pulled away from her and put his own fingers to the rends. "They burn," he snapped, half-turned from her. The quietness had left his voice. "But my mother will mend them. I shall go to her tomorrow morning, and she will sew them up with a silver thread. " He glanced sidelong at Aeriel. "They will hardly show - the wing, too----"
"They will not heal of themselves?" began Aeriel, before she remembered that without blood, nothing heals.
The darkangel turned completely away. "No. " His tone had soured. "It is a small price to pay for becoming an icarus. My mother will put it to rights. Besides, if I never heal, I also shall never scar. " The feathers of his pinions ruffled, then smoothed into a dark cape as before. "My mother says I am far too handsome to be allowed to scar. "
The one broken wing refused to settle. He stood fingering it. Aeriel could not see his face. She put her hand slowly to the scar on her own neck - a double crescent of colorless tissue - became aware in that same motion of the longer mark upon her forearm, now healed. They no longer pained her. It had never occurred to her to be ashamed of them.
The Ma'a-mbai told tales around the cookfires of the winning of their scars. The icarus had begun to pace.
"By rights," he muttered, still fingering his injured pinion. His mood had darkened. "By rights I ought to kill you now, for having disobeyed me, run away, and dealt me these. . . .
very slight damages. " He drew a long breath, evenly. "No less, they have proved troublesome. " His fingers tightened on the wing. "And the dreams, though they have passed. "
Aeriel almost drew back a step as his sharp gaze lanced across her - until she remembered that she stood upon the precipice, with no place to fall back upon but empty air.
The darkangel continued to eye her. "I could have killed you as you stood upon that mountain," he said harshly, "knife in hand - yet mercifully I spared you, brought you here. " His white brow lowered dangerously above ice-colored eyes. "Yet thus and thus have you repaid me. " He touched his wounded wing, the slashes as he spoke.
Aeriel gazed at him. And as he paced there, under her gaze, there was no splendor to him anymore, no grace or majesty, only menace and vicious petulance. He has no power over me, she realized. A sixmonth ago I would have fallen at his feet. Her pulse had steadied since the climb. The warm wind from the plains was at her back. She held her ground beneath his glare.
"If you kill me now," she found herself saying then, in a voice that did not shake, "who will weave your last bride's wedding sari?" It was what she had faltered at saying before.
The vampyre stopped short. "A new bride," he murmured, "yes. " Her words seemed to have diverted his attention. He dropped his wing. "I must take a new wife soon. This very month. " He was no longer looking at Aeriel, gazed off across the garden. "And she shall be my final bride. " The charms of his leaden necklace clinked as he nodded. "For a while, I shall go home and visit my mother then, and pay her just tribute. And when she has made me a true vampyre - " He smiled coldly; his voice grew velveted. "I shall join my six brothers, and we shall divide up the world between us. "
The casualness of his assurance chilled her. Oh, he is evil, she told herself and longed to be away from him. "I must go and begin work at once," she told him, "if I am to complete the weaving of your bride's gown by nightfall. "
The vampyre whirled, as if her unexpected words had made him suddenly aware of her again. She felt the wind of his whirling buffet her, was conscious how easily with one swift sweep of wing or arm he might bat her back over brink's edge to the plain far, far below. Watching him, his tightened lips and glaring eyes, for a moment she feared he might spring - but he subsided at last, breathing heavily. "Go, then," he said abruptly.
"And weave. "
Aeriel stood gazing at him, knowing she ought to be thankful, or surprised, and was neither - only relieved. "You will let me live. " Now that he finally had granted it, she could think of nothing else to say.
"For now," he snapped. "Until the morrow. " His voice sounded oddly hollow. "Before I leave this castle in the morning, I shall strangle you. "
Aeriel faced him and said nothing, refusing to let her heart quail. If the vampyre were not dead by the morrow's morn, she told herself, her life would be worth little anyway.
The icarus turned from her, impatiently, made a gesture of dismissal. "Begone. "
Aeriel left the top stone step, came forward into the garden, started away from him through the wild-flowering, fruitless tangle. But as she went, she heard the rustle of wings as he turned again to view her.
"Ah, me," she heard him murmuring, "girl, even your walk has changed. You move straight-shouldered as a princess now, no longer creep and cringe like a little slave. "
Aeriel fought an impulse to hunch, hurry away, hide from his gaze. She held to her pace and did not turn, for she feared that if she should so much as glance at him, he might call her back - and she did not trust his sudden quietness. It puzzled her. She could not make it out. He sighed then, as one might sigh over a lost trifle.
"It will be a pity killing you. "
Aeriel gave no sign that she had heard. The softness of his words rilled her with dread.
She continued swiftly, steadily away from him across the garden, and took the steps down into the caves.
The duarough was waiting for her at the base of the stairs with a rushlight in his hand.
Aeriel felt her heart lift now when she saw him. Her chill from the darkangel began to abate. She felt a smile dawning upon her lips, her first since she had left the Pendarlon.
The little man gave a startled snort as he spotted her, fell back a pace.
"Heavens, but you've grown, child," he told her as she reached the bottom step, "and not all of that up. "
Aeriel gave a laugh, and was surprised to find herself still capable of laughter. She brushed the tears from her cheeks. "I think perhaps that food laid into your magical pouch acquires magical properties, Little Mage of Downwending. "
The duarough blushed and looked down at his feet. "So they still remember me by that name," he sighed, smiling. "I'll not deny I'm pleased. "
Aeriel handed him the velvet pouch.
"The Avarclon's hoof," he asked, "the immortal one, mind you? Good, good. " He took the pouch from her and put it in his sleeve. "I'm glad you figured out that much from the rime. If only I'd been given a little more time for explanations!" He glanced toward the ceiling, as though aware the darkangel stood in the garden above. Then he returned his gaze to Aeriel. "I must say, though," he exclaimed, "you took your own dear time about returning. I was half afraid you had given up or else run home. "
Aeriel shook her head and felt the scar again. "The vampyre bit me. I was a long time healing. "
At that the duarough blanched and held the rushlight high that he might see. He turned away, face drawn. "Daughter, daughter, I never meant that he should catch you. I sent word ahead----"
"The Pendarlon saved me," she said, "and left me with kind people until I grew strong. "
The duarough sighed then, a little relieved. "Well, at least I know my magic has a bit of po-tence left. I was afraid the skiff would not transform, and then you would be left stranded without the lyon's knowing. " He shook his head and clucked and put his fingers together. "I thought at first when you said the vampyre bit you, that you meant he had caught you and left you for dead. I knew that he had fought with the Pendarlon - his slashes and wing were proof of that - but I began to fear the leosol had come too late for the saving of you - you took such a time returning___"
He stopped himself, seemingly embarrassed at his own outpouring of words, and Aeriel laughed again.
"But enough of this. " He clapped his hands with sudden vigor and became stern with himself. "For I have work to do, and so ha
ve you. " He reached into the pouch and pulled the starhoof from it, stood gazing at it. "I must begin the brewing of the bridal cup, and you must make the gown. " Then he halted again a moment, gazed earnestly at Aeriel, and his voice grew quieter, as though even yet he could not believe it. "Truly, daughter, are you well?" She nodded, and the duarough laughed, shaking his head. "Well, good, then.
So I think we'd best be off, the both of us. " Then he hurried away down the shore along the river running. Aeriel felt a final, quiet laugh forming in her throat. He seemed a little in awe of her, and his sudden brusqueness was just to hide it. She turned and walked up the riverbank toward the steps that led up to the castle. Leaving the light and warmth of the caves, she felt the chill of the vampyre's keep descending upon her, but she shook it off. She had resolved herself in the garden above to have done with helpless dread. There was not time for it, and she had weaving to attend to.
When Aeriel came to the room of the wraiths, they were much as she had seen them when first she had come to the castle - they paced the floor, or sat rocking and moaning, or writhed and shrieked and tore their hair. They were all of them still thin as mummified birds: their starved faces held only dark, eyeless hollows, and their hair hung stiff and brittle as nettleseed silk. She still could tell none of them apart. The only difference was that the garments they wore were not the coarse, drab things she had seen them in at first, but light and airy shifts of spun charity.
The wraiths saw her standing in the doorway all at once, and some of them gave a feeble cry. She went into the room among them and they all gathered around and reached to touch her as though they could not believe she were really there. "You have come back,"
they said, "You have come back. You were gone a long time. We called for you and called," the lethargy of their voices telling Aeriel how pitifully their wits had dulled in her absence. "We grew so lonely with no one to talk to and sing us tales," they mumbled.
Aeriel bit her lip, let out her breath and hoped she might, over the day-month's time, restore their faculties somewhat. "Why did you stay away so long?" pleaded the wraiths.
"I ran away from the castle," said Aeriel.
"But he has caught you again and returned you," they moaned.
She shook her head. "He caught me once, but at the last, I got away. "
"But why did you return," they cried, rousing, "if you escaped him?"
Aeriel smiled. Already their reason seemed to be quickening. "I only went because I had an errand to do. Now that is done, so I returned. "
"But it is madness," cried the wraiths. "You were safe away from him. Why did you come back?"
"I promised I would help you," said Aeriel. "I could not leave you stranded here to die. "
"We are grateful," said the wraiths, subsiding. They dropped their voices, glanced furtively about. "But you must hide. He will kill you if he finds you. "
"He knows I am here," Aeriel replied, taking up her spindle from the floor where she had left it last. "And he means to kill me tomorrow. " The wraiths began to moan again, but she soothed them, "Hush. Much may befall betwixt now and then. "
She sat down on the low stool among the wraiths and began to spin. She was months out of practice, but she had not lost the knack: immediately a golden thread sprang to her fingers and she let the turning spindle drop. She had a host of new-learned desert tales to spin for them as well.
"Now," she said, "shall I tell you of my journey over the desert and under the plain?"
Aeriel spent much of her time with the wraiths, spinning the thread for the garment of the vampyre's new bride and telling them stories of her sojourn on the desert and plain. She also went up to see the gargoyles often. At first they were as starved and as savage as before, but after she had fed them, they grew tame again, so docile in fact that though they still snapped and fought among themselves, some of them allowed her to caress them briefly, and a few would even take food from her hand.
She fell to studying the silver leashes that held them to the tower. And she saw that the chains were attached to each smooth brazen collar not by means of a lock, or even by a welded link, but rather by a slotted silver pin that might, by the proper sequence of sliding and turning, be slipped free. Nonetheless, though the weird beasts constantly tore at and worried their shackles, Aeriel perceived that only a human hand could trip the bolts and unloose their chains.
What time she did not spend with the wraiths and the gargoyles, she spent down in the caves with the duarough. He had converted the main treasury room into a sort of laboratory. A complex apparatus of slender metal tubes extended around the periphery with hardly a break, so that Aeriel could scarcely get in the door. Many dusty old books lay open about the floor, though in the middle of the room, there was still left considerable open space - and at the very center, the little fire burned as usual, unflagging and undying.
"Tell me," said Aeriel, sitting beside the fire, "how this will help us kill the vampyre. "
The little man bustled about the apparatus. He hurried over to a book to consult some diagram or formula, then hurried back to adjust the flame under one of his bubbling containers. Then he brushed off his hands and came to sit by the fire with Aeriel.
"Out of this," he replied, gesturing at his handiwork, "I shall distill the bridal cup. "
"You mean to poison him?" said Aeriel, quietly. Somehow, she had never before this brought herself to speculate what method they would use. It had not seemed real enough.
But now the deed was imminent. Poison. So it was to be poison. It brought a bitterness into her mouth, knowing.
But the duarough was shaking his head. "Daughter," he chided, "the darkangel is poisoned already. This cup is no harm to any living creature, such as you or I, but to the vampyre, well. . . "
"What must I do?"
"You must give it to the bride to have him drink for a wedding toast. Do this when you attend her - by the way, how comes the spinning?"
"The spinning is done," said Aeriel, "and the weaving will be by late afternoon. " She glanced over at the duarough's distillery. "And the icarus," she said, "I have not seen him lately. Where is he?"
The duarough rose and dusted his hands, turned back toward his apparatus. "He has flown," he answered. "He flew at noon to find a bride. " The little man paused a moment, glanced back over his shoulder at Aeriel. "And you, daughter. How are you bearing up -
still troubled dreams?"
She looked away, nodded. "Sometimes. " Her sleep was never free of the darkangel now.
Strange. When she had been beneath his spell, she had never dreamed of him. Aeriel rubbed her arms. "When the darkangel is dead," she murmured, more to herself than to the mage, "they will trouble me no more. " She stood silent a moment, looking at nothing.
Even now she could not shake off" the cold. "It chills me to think what we are planning,"
she said.
Across from her, Talb sighed, turned back to adjusting his tubes and vials. "It chills me, too, betimes, daughter. But would you rather accept the alternative?"
Aeriel touched her throat and shook her head. "No. No. " She rose and shoved the thought from her mind. If they did not slay the darkangel, their world would fall. She dropped her chafing arms and sighed. "Well, if, as you said, the vampyre is flown, I must go to them and set them free. "
The duarough half-turned. "What's that?" he said. "What do you mean - the wraiths?"
Aeriel shook her head. "The gargoyles," she replied. "I resolved to free them as soon as he was gone. "
The little man's brows drew together worriedly. "Daughter, he will not be much pleased with that, when he returns. "
Aeriel sighed, and shook herself. "It makes no matter. To please him is no longer my great concern. " She was a little surprised at the boldness of her words, even more surprised to find that they were true. "The gargoyles suffer. I shall free them. "
The duarough looked at her then in very wonderm
ent. "Five months of desert life," he said softly. "Ah, mistress, how you are changed. "