The Darkangel

by Pierce, Meredith Ann

  Aeriel licked her lips and burned her tongue on the sweetness of horn liquor. She was lying on hard, sloping ground. Jagged pebbles pressed into her back like great pus-pox, hurting her. She could feel the goatskin bottle on her chest and the warmth on her cheek and throat where it had splashed out, spilling. She was lying on the slope, her head lowest, her feet uphill from her: her toes were numb. All this she knew without opening her eyes.

  She opened them slowly, saw the star-littered sky above through the slight glare of sun in her eyes. She tried to move and found it hard, very hard. Her head came away sticky from the ground with a soreness that made her feel sick and stupid. She got one elbow under her and propped herself up, gazed straight at Oceanus, a huge and constant blue with no shadow of wings across it now.

  She said, "Eoduin," and wept, but she was too weak to weep much.

  Her hand was cold. All her body was warm in the sun, but her left hand was cold: she looked at it presently and saw that the shadow of a boulder down the slope had crept across it. That frightened her. She snatched it from the shadow and sat up, twisted around—too quickly. Her temples pounded; she felt the blood running out of her head, and blotches of darkness wandered across the stars.

  Solstar was setting. She could see it as her vision cleared. It was barely three degrees above the horizon—and that would diminish as she descended the mountain. She twisted her head around the other way. The pain increased sharply at the sudden move. She could already see the shade of night across the desert to the west. She had two hours, maybe less, to get back to the village by nightfall. With the wedding procession about to begin, who would miss one little slave?

  She chafed the leaden, cold-bitten hand in her lap and felt nothing. It was numb. She groped for the flask at her neck: yes, there was a little of the liquor left. She poured the bright liquid out onto her limp, waxy hand, then grimaced, rocked in pain as the heat soaked through the frostbite, burned to the bone and then to the marrow. As the heat diminished and was gone, color returned to her hand; she could move it.

  She got to her knees and then to her feet, took a step, stumbled and fell. She got up again and started down the slope. The soreness in her head was mostly dull, but when she missed her footing and staggered, the pain stabbed. She clung to the rocks of the mountainside, to the scrubweed, to the crannies. She raked her arm on bell-thorn and scraped her knuckles raw when she slipped. Twice the winding trail crumbled beneath her feet and fell away down the mountainside like a tiny meteor shower. And always the sun sank lower as she descended the steep, and the shadows lengthened. The air grew warmer and thicker: her breathing eased.

  Solstar had halfway sunk into the Sea-of-Dust by the time she heard the marriage hymns drifting up into the foothills on the soft plains wind. Strange. It seemed strange after the airless, muted steeps that here below, still a quarter-mile from the village, she could hear the singing so distinctly so far away. She listened to the words floating in the long, harsh twilight.

  Farra atwei, farra atwei. Narett, miri umni hardue __.

  Here in the foothills, just coming into the village, the path was much broader, smoother, less steep. She had come this way a dozen times: up to the spring to catch minnows, up to play in the caves and gather mushrooms, and just six hours past up into the mountains with Eoduin.

  Aeriel grimaced with the pain of remembering. Eoduin had once pulled her out of one of those dark pools when she had slipped, pulled her out by the hair and pounded her on the back as they knelt, wet and shuddering, on the slick, steep bank until Aeriel had coughed up half a measure of bitter water and no more would come. That had been two years ago.

  Aeriel's head hurt, now, as she fled down the broad, smooth path by the caves toward the village. She did not want to think of Eoduin. She thought of the music instead.

  Tkyros idil temkin terral, Ma'amombi tembrilferral....

  The words were closer now, a little louder. She realized that she was in the village. The smooth, square, whitewashed adobe houses gleamed in the dying light of Solstar.

  Gathered gauze draped softly from their dark windows. The great street that ran east-west was a long corridor of light. The little north-south side streets were dark as death.

  Anntuin dantuwyn tevangel hemb, Letsichel mirmichel gamberg an rend....

  She was passing the houses more quickly now: she could see the village square ahead, filled with people. Then suddenly she was among the people, who did not seem to notice her but went on with the singing,, their eyes turned toward the half-gone sun. Pushing past them, she gave a cry to make them stop.

  The hymn broke off raggedly in midverse. The syndic frowned from his place before the bride and groom. The bride in her new-woven sari glanced around. Behind her and the syndic, Aeriel saw Eoduin's mother, a thin-faced aristocrat with hair like night. Old Bomba swayed beside her, nodding off into sleep even as she stood. Aeriel stared at Bomba and the mother.

  "Eoduin," she gasped, breathless.

  The syndic, Eoduin's father, had been standing in shadow, came forward now into the glare. "Yes," he said, "where is she? The ceremony cannot be completed without the bridal cup." He eyed the flask still hanging from Aeriel's neck. "Has she sent you ahead with it?"

  "She," said Aeriel. She could not catch her breath. "No, she..."

  "Well, where is she, then?" demanded the syndic, pursing his fine lips. He gave an exasperated sigh. "How that girl can dawdle!" Turning back to Aeriel, his patience thinned. "Come, out with it, drudge, or I'll have you beaten."

  "Gone!" cried Aeriel, marveling that even yet he did not understand. "The icarus," she faltered, "the one with wings..."

  The syndic shook his head impatiently. "Are you gaming with me, drudge? Now where's my daughter, your mistress; where's Eoduin?"

  Aeriel gazed at him and longed to faint. The syndic glared at her and would not listen.

  The townspeople all stood hushed now, staring. Her head felt light, ached; she felt her balance tip. She swayed and staggered. The syndic eyed her with sudden suspicion.

  "Have you been tasting of those hornflowers, girl?"

  Aeriel looked back at him with dull surprise. "I hit my head," she muttered, putting her hand to the sticky place behind and above her ear.

  She felt something at once soft and stiff amid her tangled hair. She pulled it free from the mat of blood. It was a feather, black, a cubit long. It had been in her hair the whole time she had been coming down the mountain, and she had not known. Realization struck her with the coldness of shadow across strong light.

  She shuddered once, staring at the thing. Her hand snapped open but the feather did not fall, stuck to the half-dried ooze on her palm. She shook her hand and still it clung, black and blood-damp; she could not bear to touch it or pull it free with her other hand.

  The last ray of Solstar winked out, like a candle snuffed. The square was smothered in shadow. All was night. Aeriel could still see the vampyre's feather dimly, a black streak in the dark against the paleness of her flesh. No one moved toward her. No one stirred to help her. She gave a long, low cry of revulsion and despair, and swooned.

  2. Vengeance

  "Who will kill the vampyre?" said Aeriel softly, softly. The vehemence of her own words surprised her. She was kneeling beside the wide, low windows of the deserted alcove just off the empty dyeing chamber. Night outside was dark and still. Her mouth tasted like metal. She had not known she could feel such bitterness.

  She remembered waking hours, many hours after the sun had set, and seeing old Bomba along with some others of the servant women murmuring over her or moving quietly about the darkened chamber. Bomba had laid a cool, damp gauzecloth on her forehead.

  Time passed. And then, she remembered Eoduin's mother, the syndic's wife, shoving suddenly into the room, the women falling back deferentially, uncertainly before their mistress, who came to stand over Aeriel, white-faced and screaming: "So she is awake, now, is she—why wasn't I told? My daughter is dead because of you, worthless cha
ttel!"

  The woman's hair was disheveled, her thin cheeks tear-streaked, her garments rent with mourning. Her face above Aeriel looked like Eoduin's, only older. One long finger she leveled at Aeriel. "Why could you not have protected my daughter? You should have given your life for your mistress." The woman's breast heaved in a sob. "Why could the vampyre not have taken you instead of Eoduin?"

  And then the sharp crack of the woman's hand against Aeriel's cheek, so sudden the tears sprang to her eyes. Startled murmurs from the servants, the syndic hurrying short-breathed into the chamber, pulling his wife away. "Come off, my dear. Such displays of grief are untowardly. You demean yourself before mere serving-women___" Then Bomba's great bulk bending over Aeriel again and fingering her stinging cheek gently with murmurs of "There, there, child. There."

  Aeriel beside the alcove window stared out into the night. Since her recovery she had kept as far from Eoduin's mother as she might. She thought then of Eoduin, the mistress she had served almost since before she could walk. She recalled it vividly: the aristocrat's young doted-upon daughter pointing her out to her father at the slave fair twelve summers gone and begging him to buy that one, that one. Eoduin, who had been her constant companion since—more friend than mistress, though a proud and a high-handed friend.

  Her only friend.

  Aeriel sighed bitterly. Now all things had changed. His daughter dead, the syndic planned to sell Aeriel soon—she had heard the servants' whispering in the halls—his wife demanded it. Aeriel thought of the provincial slave fairs in Orm: bids and shackles, confinements, blows. Here in the syndic's house, Eoduin had always protected her.

  She would be sold northward, she was certain of it, deeper into the hills. Here at plain's edge, owned servants were sometimes treated with tolerance. But it was worse in the mountain heartlands: tales of slaves beaten or worked to death___ It chilled her, thinking of it. Aeriel

  closed her eyes to the dark outside. I cannot live without Eoduin, she thought, and I would rather die than brave the slave markets of Orm.

  She pulled her tangled thoughts away from that, tried to think on other things. Already the village poets were beginning to sing of the syndic's hapless daughter, stolen away for the vampyre's bride. Yet with all their singing and moaning and murmuring in all the fortnight since, not one of Eoduin's friends or kith had stirred a step to climb the steeps again and confront her murderer. That is not justice, Aeriel raged silently, in despair.

  Holding the icarus' great black feather up before her face, she opened her eyes and stared at it. Its dull darkness absorbed and nullified the white and smoky lamplight. Without, the shade of night, now three-quarters of a half-month old, loomed blacker than birds' eyes.

  The white plain of Avaric gleamed faintly in the pale blue light of Oceanus.

  "Someone must kill the vampyre," she breathed, as to the feather, almost pleading; the quill's black plumage stirred, "that Eoduin may be avenged."

  "There is no vampyre," said Dirna gently, her only companion in the small, empty room.

  She sat behind Aeriel, combing out her hair—carefully in back where her head was still tender.

  "Then what is this?" demanded Aeriel, twisting around. Her hair caught in the teeth of the comb and pulled sharply. Catching Dirna's hand in hers, she ran the older woman's long, leathery fingers over the feather.

  "I don't know," hissed Dirna quietly. Her voice was always soft and sibilant, nothing like Bomba's deep-sounding tones.

  "Don't know?" insisted Aeriel. "What does it feel like?"

  The other sighed and groped for the little horn comb hanging tangled in Aeriel's hair.

  "True, dear one, it does resemble a feather—but it cannot be. Perhaps it is a leaf or flower of some high mountain plant no one has ever seen before...."

  "Dirna!" cried Aeriel.

  Her fellow servant stared straight ahead and said softly, assuredly, "There are no birds even half so large. Birds are rose, or pale blue, or subtle green. Yet you say this thing is black. There are no black birds."

  "It isn't from a bird," said Aeriel evenly.

  "There are no vampyres," Dirna told her, with infinite patience, "just as there are no mudlicks or water witches."

  Aeriel stared off across the room and held her tongue. Dirna had been this way as long as she had known her. Sometimes she wore an eerie look that told she was in the mood for tales; then she swore absolutely by the creatures of the dark. But other times, her eyes seemed to clear a little, and she scoffed at them all as nothing but mad minds'

  wanderings.

  The latter humor seemed to be on her now, and Aeriel despaired. Much as she shrank from Dirna's queerness, her calmer moods could be even more galling. She wished the other had not found her, come creeping into the little alcove where Aeriel had retreated to gaze out at the night; she wanted to be alone. She felt Dirna beginning to run through her fine yellow hair again.

  "The air is thin up high on the steeps," she said. "Fatigue can trick your eyes. Perhaps a landslide, perhaps she fell—I don't know." The comb pricked and pulled at Aeriel's scalp.

  Dirna sighed. "You mustn't grieve, dearling. I know it wasn't your fault."

  Aeriel stiffened and stared at her. Dirna seemed to be listening, but Aeriel saw no one in the outer chamber.

  The older woman said softly, conspiratorially, "Eoduin was not the easiest mistress to serve." Dirna pulled a few of Aeriel's hairs from the comb. "But she admired you in a way—did you know it?—how you took her mother's every blow with never a sound. You know she used to fly into fits of tears if her father so much as slapped her___" Dirna fluttered her fingers to let the freed hairs fall. "She was even a bit jealous, I think. Did you sense that, my heart—resent it even—your mistress's jealousy?"

  "What do you mean?" demanded Aeriel. Dirna's words astonished her. Eoduin jealous—

  and of her? Impossible. "I loved Eoduin."

  "Say nothing to me," hissed Dirna softly, "and I will have nothing to tell." She found Aeriel's chin with her hand and turned it away to face straight ahead. She spoke almost beneath her breath. "Everyone believes you, you know—or else holds tongue. The syndic believes you, else he'd have had you beaten for the truth."

  Aeriel felt the comb parting her hair.

  "They went up into the steeps with candles— had you heard?—looking for the place.

  They didn't find anything, though—no wonder. You can't see a thing by earthlight and candles." The comb tugged at a tangle in Aeriel's hair. "They did find a few more of those leaves—feathers, whatever they are—so I heard. You were smart to strew them about.

  The body will have fallen all to ash by the time the sun's up."

  Dirna's voice had hushed to a mutter. She laughed quietly, companionably.

  "You're much cleverer than I took you for, little one. And there must be a deal more spirit in you than you've ever let show. Tell me; did you plan it, or just seize an opportunity? At sunrise, you can take me up and we'll hunt for the bones."

  Aeriel stared at her. Her throat went tight. She wanted Bomba suddenly. She wished Dirna had never come. "You'll find no bones," she choked. "The only bones you'll find are the sea-things dead long years."

  Dirna continued combing her hair, unconcerned. "Don't fear," she said. "You can trust me." The older woman's voice was full of pity. "I know that circumstance—the altitude, a sip of horn liquor: circumstances can make anyone a little mad."

  Aeriel pulled hard away from her. "I didn't," she said. "You think I killed her and I didn't.

  It was the vampyre carried her away."

  Dirna shook her head. "There is no vampyre, child."

  "There is!" cried Aeriel. Her teeth were clenched. Outrage welled in her against the icarus, against Eoduin's faithless kith and friends, against Dirna and her soft, slippery words. The feather crumpled in her hand. "There is."

  "Not so," said Dirna firmly. "Now let me comb your hair."

  "No," said Aeriel, backing away.

  "
All is well," crooned Dirna with compassion.

  "I understand how you must feel. Have I not told you? I killed someone dear to me once, too."

  Aeriel looked at her with horror almost as deep as that she had felt on the mountain, and remembered one of the ghastly tales Dirna had once told her, all alone, in secret. It had been nothing like the silly, soothing old nurse tales of Bomba's. It was not even like the other ones Dirna herself had ever told, for this story, she had sworn utterly, had really happened—and to her.

  Dirna sat, comb in hand, near where Aeriel stood, and gazed at nothing, her eyes bright and filmed over, blind. Aeriel shuddered and shrank from her. "What's wrong?" said Dirna, turning her high-held head a trace. "Come here."

  "No," said Aeriel, falling back another step.

  The madwoman reached for her. "Come here; I want to comb your hair."

  "No," cried Aeriel and fled. The black feather fell from her hand as she ran through the empty dyeing room and then the crowded weavers' room. She tripped over a full basket of yarn, spilling the skeins across the dusty floor. Scrambling up, she fled the room, unheeding of the angry shouts that followed her.

  She found Bomba in the spinning room, hunched over in one corner, nodding off to sleep.

  Her great bone spindle lay fallen over on the floor, its fine wool thread beginning to unwind as her thick fingers relaxed. The other women spun and chatted, ignoring the old nurse.

  "Bomba," cried Aeriel, falling down beside her. "Bomba."

  Bomba sputtered and half-woke, sat a moment blinking, then reached her massive arm to enfold the frightened girl. "Hm, what's this, little one?" she murmured. "More nightmares?"

  "It was Dirna," cried Aeriel. "She thinks... She said..."

  Bomba woke a litde more, gave a snort of disapproval. "Dirna, eh? You stay away from her, child—old tale-twister. She's a little fey, you know?"

  Aeriel buried her face in the soft fold of Bom-ba's bosom and sobbed. "I will kill the vampyre," she choked, longing for Eoduin and hating her murderer. "I will kill him." Her whole body shook. She thought again of the syndic's wife: "Why could the vampyre not have taken you instead of Eoduin?" Now Dirna's words had made her feel even more deeply that it was somehow all her fault.