Page 24
In the lake below, the dead mereguint floated, head severed from its body, black blood iridescent upon the shadowy surface of the Mere. A haze of acrid yellow smoke drifted over it. Not far from it, the lyon, with the dark girl still crouched upon his back, bounded onto the ledge of the castle directly beneath Aeriel. The burning sword blazed in Erin's hand. Drained by even such brief contact with the glaive, Aeriel tottered.
"Erin. Oh, Erin," she breathed.
In the sky overhead, one of Irrylath's brothers sliced a darkangel with his hooked Istern sword.
Oriencor's lip curled in a snarl. Eyes fixed on the battle in the air, she seemed not to have noticed Erin vanquishing her dragons below. Aeriel wondered if the White Witch had even heard her crying the dark girl's name. Above, the prince of Avaric finished off his brother's darkangel with the Edge Adamantine. In silence, like its fellow, the icarus fell.
"Irrylath fights well," Ravenna's daughter murmured, "with great brilliance and passion. I will grant him that. One by one, my darkangels topple. "
On the far shore, her troops no longer held any semblance of order. Company by company, her minions were straying to a stop. Absorbed in the aerial battle, Oriencor remained oblivious. A rush of sudden understanding overtook Aeriel. Like an overambitious juggler unable to catch and rethrow all of her many beads, the Witch was allowing her forgotten ground forces to falter. Such numbers, Aeriel realized, must require tremendous concentration to control—and Irrylath's betrayal had clearly shaken her.
"Traitor!" the Witch muttered bitterly. "I never thought he would desert me in the end. "
Keep her distracted! Aeriel told herself. Oriencor could regather her scattered battalions in a moment, if she chose. Desperately, the pale girl searched her mind for something, anything to keep the other's attention from the battle below.
"Yes, my husband has deserted you," she said, throwing into her voice a hard edge of confidence she did not feel. "As the Ancients of Oceanus once deserted you—as did Melkior. "
With a hiss, the White Witch turned from the casement, her green eyes blazing. "What do you know of Melkior, you little fool?"
Aeriel's heart quailed beneath the ferociousness of that gaze, but she steeled herself to stand firm, not to flinch. "That he is a halfling, like you," she flung back, using the word she knew would cut. "That he was your friend once, but he turned from you. He served your mother in the end. "
"My mother is dead," the White Witch snarled, "and Melkior no more than her clockwork golam.
Gears and wires! He is unimportant. "
Angrily, she made as if to turn back toward the fray. Aeriel stifled the cry of protest that would betray her as surely as would Oriencor's taking note of events below.
"The Ancients abandoned you as well," Aeriel said quickly. "They refused to take you with them when they left. " The Witch's gaze flicked back to Aeriel, who struggled to maintain her appearance of calm. She must let no hint of what she saw through the casement show on her face. "That is why you hate the world so. The Ancients' going left you prisoner here. "
Oriencor glared at Aeriel. "Their leaving me was all my mother's doing—" she started, then stopped herself. Contemptuously, the half-Ancient bowed her white lips in a smile. "But I do not hate the world, little sorceress—though perhaps my mother thought so. I do not care one way or another what happens to the world when I am gone. "
Beyond the window, another darkangel fell.
"You are right about the Ancients, though," Oriencor continued evenly. "They broke my heart, leaving me. Soon, however, they will welcome me—they must, for I have proved myself their peer. Have I not labored these thousand years to join them?"
Frowning, Aeriel shook her head, not understanding what the other meant. The White Witch gave a derisive snort. She had turned her attention wholly away from the window now. Hurriedly, Aeriel blanked her features, lest her delight show through. If only she could keep Oriencor occupied a little longer, then the allies had a chance.
"The Ancients will never return here, of course," said the Witch. Her tone grew fierce. "So if I wish to share their company again, it is up to me. Don't you see? I mean to join my peers on Oceanus and claim my birthright there. It is to that end I have been pillaging this planet for a thousand years. "
Aeriel stared at her, more baffled than before. But they're dead, she thought. Oriencor spoke as though Oceanus were green and blooming still, not ravaged by plagues and horrors. Unexpectedly, Ravenna's daughter smiled her cool, malevolent smile.
"My mother told you nothing of this, I see. So not even she suspected my plans. " The White Witch laughed. "Good. "
"She said you were killing the world for vengeance—" Aeriel began.
Oriencor nodded curtly. "Oh, I am. In part. At first, many years ago, I longed simply to ruin my mother's work, to force her and her fellows to abandon this world. I hoped they would construct new chariots and take me with them when they returned home. "
Distractedly, she stroked the wet windowsill, its odd moisture pooling in the light of sinking Solstar—yet, Aeriel noticed, wherever Oriencor laid her hand, the water thickened, congealing like candlewax.
"But they were very stubborn," the White Witch sighed. "At last I saw I must obtain the means to depart this world myself. "
"But you've no chariot…" Aeriel started. Below, Syllva, in the prow of the foremost Istern barge, was halfway to the keep.
"You underestimate me," the White Witch snapped, her back to the scene below. "I have built one: a fiery engine to cross heaven. What did you think I wanted the duaroughs for?"
Aeriel stared. With the pearl's aid, she envisioned the captured duaroughs deep underground—building the Witch her means of escape. The lorelei leaned back, bracing her arms against the frozen windowledge. In the air beyond the window, yet another darkangel plummeted, run through by Irrylath.
Below, the Mariners of the islands were clambering onto Winterock's narrow, icy shore. They tried the keep's walls with their weapons, but their spearheads chipped and broke, brittle with the cold. Erin hacked once, experimentally, at the doorless crystal with the blade of the burning sword.
"My fuel is gathered," laughed Oriencor, "though there's so little water on this world, it's taken me a long time to steal enough. "
Aeriel could not think what she meant. Water to fuel an engine's fires? Ravenna's daughter smiled thinly.
"Didn't you learn anything in NuRavenna, little sorceress? Water consists of two elements," she said.
"One is a fuel, like wax or oil; the other, a vapor that we breathe and that enables fire to burn. My chariot requires both elements in great quantity. "
Even as she spoke, the pearl with eerie clarity strung the beads before Aeriel's inner eye so that she was able to picture what Oriencor described: little spots of fire mating and dancing, twining and untwining upon long strands. Impatiently, the White Witch went on.
"And our world's water, unlike that of Oceanus, contains a third component, one that keeps it soluble even in cold shadow. Life-giving to you," the lorelei said, "it is poisonous to my kind. "
Aeriel remembered suddenly the bright, hot liquor Talb the Mage had once distilled to poison a darkangel. Oriencor sighed.
"But bind that component—neutralize it—and water grows murky, sluggish, cold. "
Aeriel thought of the dark, oil-smooth waters of the Mere below.
"Remove it entirely, and you have winterock. "
The Witch's gesture encompassed the whole palace. Behind her, Syllva and the others in barges below drew nearer the castle. Some of the Witch's lesser water-creatures swarmed about the barges, but without their mistress's will to guide them, their attacks had become clumsy and half-hearted. The bowwomen of Esternesse picked them off over the barges' rails. Aeriel hardly saw—for she stood gazing at the white, frigid walls around her, open-mouthed in astonishment at her new understanding: water.
More water than she had ever dreamed, enough to break the whole parched world's drought —if only it were not all of it dead, hardened, transformed into stone! Again she shook her head.
"But… even if you could reach Oceanus—" she started.
"I will," Oriencor cut in. "I have the Ancient charts. I know the way. "
"But you'll be crushed!" Aeriel exclaimed. "Torn apart. No creature born here can bear the weight of that world. " Oriencor sneered. "Do you really think me the weak and puny thing that once I was?"
Upon the shores of the Mere, Orrototo, leading her Ma'ambai and the other desert tribes, Sabr and her mounted bandits, Irrylath's eldest and youngest brothers, Nar and Hadin, and her own brother Roshka were making short work of the foe. Above, Irrylath and the rest of his brothers closed in on the two remaining icari. Calmly, the White Witch eyed her.
"The gravity of Oceanus might pull to bits, little mortal, but I have found a way to fortify myself against that Ancient tide. "
Aeriel frowned, trying desperately to understand. The lorelei smiled a wicked, piercing smile.
Suddenly, sickeningly, Aeriel knew what she would say.
"Souls," the White Witch murmured, speaking the word as though it were delicious to her. "Souls to feed me and make me strong. That is all I require now: many sweet, struggling souls. I haven't had nearly enough of them yet. "
Aeriel stared, speechless. Beyond the window, another darkangel fell from the air. Below, the Witch's forces were being routed and driven away. Some simply milled upon the shore until picked off by the allied troops not yet in boats.
The White Witch stood laughing at her. Staring into those cold green eyes, Aeriel felt a sudden horrifying suspicion grip her like a vise: it had all been too easy. The Witch knew. She had known all along. Deliberately, Oriencor turned back to the casement's view and sighed.
"A fine slaughter. "