"Talb the duarough sent me," said Aeriel. "I do not know his real name."
"Ah, the Little Mage of the Caves of Down-wending," the equustel said, tossing his head and snorting. "So he did not go with the queen to Westernesse. Had I known I had such an ally in the plains, I might have called on him at need. Tell me, little one, why have you come?"
"He has sent me," said Aeriel, "to sing you a rime he has found in the Book of the Dead.
He says you will know the meaning thereof."
The starhorse nodded, champing and sidling restlessly. "Sing me the rime," he said.
Aeriel told him:
"On Avaric's white plain
where the icarus now wings To steeps of Terrain
from tour-of-the-fdngs,
And damoiels twice-seven
his brides have all become:
Afar cry from heaven
and a long road from home—
Then strong-hoof of the starhorse
must hallow him unguessed
If adamant's edge is to plunder his breast.
Then, only, may the Warhorse
and Warrior arise To rally the warhosts, and thunder
the skies."
The equustel nickered softly and grew suddenly gentle. Beside her, Aeriel thought she caught the faint rumbling of the lyon's purr.
"Yes, child, yes," the starhorse exclaimed. "I have heard that song before. It was one of the riddles sung over me at my making. I know its meaning well."
"Your making?" said Aeriel in wonder. "Are you not mortal? Were you not born?"
The starhorse laughed, whinnied and shook his head for sheer exuberance. "The Old Ones made me, child, and the lyon, and the hippogriff of the eastern steeps and the gryphon of Terrain—and the great she-wolf of forested Bern, and the lithe serpent of the Sea-of-Dust." His eyes grew bright and far; he breathed deep. "Made these and the other Wardens-of-the-World. Ravenna, Ravenna! She was a wise woman."
The Pendalon had sat down purring on the sand near Aeriel, began nibbling and licking his paw. The equustel reared and danced where he stood.
"Ravenna?" ventured Aeriel. "Who is Ravenna?"
The Avarclon whinnied fiercely and the sunlion roared.
"Ravenna, Ravenna, the Ancient who made us," the starhorse replied. "When I was but a fledgling foal and the Pendarlon a cub, and all the other Ions but hatchlings or whelps, then she sang over us a song for each—a destiny to strive after. It would come to pass, she said, if our hearts proved true enough and fate ran fair." The Avarclon rose and pawed the air with his hooves; his great grey wings beat like a bird's. "Oh, she was learned, and steadfast, and kind. She foresaw the great changes that were to pass—even the coming of the icari, and how they might be undone."
"Tell me of the Old Ones," Aeriel begged him. Curiosity burned in her to know.
Then the Avarclon nodded and Aeriel sat down on the sand near the leosol to listen, while the starhorse spoke to her of ancient days, of the coming of the Ancients into the world, plunging across the heavens from Oceanus in chariots of fire, how they brought air and water and life to the land, bred plants and made creatures to populate it, then fashioned all the peoples of the world. Aeriel was stolen away with wonder at his tale, and the starhorse seemed to grow more beautiful and spirited as the eclipse reached its fullest.
But then he spoke of great wars and plagues on Oceanus, of the departure for their homeland of all but a few of the Heaven-born. Then the chariots ceased coming, and gradually the land began to change; most of the water ran off into the ground and the atmosphere began to thin. Species of plants and animals died out. One by one, the Ancients sealed themselves off in their domed cities and refused to have more to do with the slowly dying planet. Left to themselves, the people fell into tribalism.
Ravenna had been the last to go, to disappear into her domed city, sealed away from further commerce with the world. But before she had gone—and she would not say why she was going—she had fashioned the wardens, more than a dozen of them, to watch over the various quarters, protecting the people and keeping the peace until such time, lost far into the indefinite future, that she had promised to return.
And the wardens had kept their ranges well for almost a thousand years—until the coming of the icari. No creature seemed able to stand against them. Six Ions already had fallen to the six that had come so far, and now this last, the seventh, was in Avaric. And when he joined their ranks as a true vampyre and made their number complete, it was said, then they meant to fly in force against the other kingdoms, and take all the world in their teeth.
And to Aeriel, swept away by the starhorse's words, it seemed for a moment that her heart was no longer her own. She sensed the equustel's cold hatred for the vampyre and his brethren, the sun-lion's more heated ire. She felt the same outrage well up in her own breast against the icari—be they ever so fair—as at last she comprehended the full malevolence of their intent. She stared at the starhorse in dismay. "But why have you abandoned Avaric to the darkangel?" she cried.
The Avarclon gave a low horse-laugh that sounded bitterly amused. "Daughter, you speak as though you believe I gladly left. Child, I am exiled unwilling. Do you not think I would return to vanquish the vampyre if I could?" The greathorse shook his head. "He has proven too strong for me, and my fate is left unfulfilled." He gazed off across the rolling dunes toward Avaric. "Though neither could he destroy me, nor would I let him catch me to enslave me—so he has driven me out with his terrible might."
The words had greatly saddened him. He paused for breath. Above them, the eclipse was nearing its close. In a moment, Solstar would peer from behind the Planet.
"But now," said Aeriel, "the time is ripe. Soon he will take his fourteenth bride and be master absolute of the plain. You must come back with me. Is it not written that by the hoof of the starhorse the vampyre shall fall? Come back with me."
The Avarclon shook his head slowly. He looked visibly weaker than he had only a few minutes before. His head drooped. His coat no longer shone. He seemed to grow gaunt before her eyes.
"If only I could, child," he whispered, his voice growing thin and hoarse. "If only..."
The rim of the sun slid from behind Oceanus. Light spilled over the dunes. The Avarclon gave a low moan of despair. His eyes were dull and glazed. His flesh shrank and melted away beneadi the skin. Aeriel saw his bones.
"What is it?" she cried sofdy. "What is happening?"
"Hush, child," said the lyon. "He cannot hear you now."
The starhorse moaned again and shuddered. "Avaric!" he cried. "Avaric, Avaric!"
His legs grew stick-thin and buckled. He pitched forward onto the sand. Aeriel gasped and pressed closer to the lyon.
"Tell me what is happening," she begged him. "I'm afraid."
The grey horse struggled to rise. His wings thrashed desperately. His legs folded under him like a newborn colt's. His second attempt was weaker. His third weaker still. His wings ceased beating. He gave a deep sigh; his head bowed slowly, slowly till his nose just touched the ground. His rib cage heaved and his breath stirred the sand.
"Each of us," the lyon said, "each of the wardens is bound to the lands we ward. None of us can spend many day-months from our domains without.. .**
Aeriel hardly heard the rest. Solstar was halfway out from behind the Planet. The starhorse aged before her eyes. He no longer struggled to rise, or even to keep his head up, but just to keep himself upright. He swayed, righted himself, swayed again. At last he lost the battle and rolled slowly over on his side. His long, graceless legs kicked, writhed; his head moved feebly in the sand. His jet eye stared at the sky above. Aeriel could see white Solstar reflected in it.
Then his eye darkened, and even the reflected light in it went out. He lay still. His flesh moldered and crumbled. His moth-eaten skin hung in rags from the bone. The tatters sagged in the slight wind, tiny pennants. Then they, too, were gone and only the hard things were left—teeth, bones, hooves, and horn, and a few s
trands of his mane and tail, and the feathers of his wings. The desert wind sighed softly; some of the feathers drifted away across the dunes.
"He is dead!" cried Aeriel, unable even now quite to believe it. "Why did you do nothing?
What killed him?"
"Exile killed him. He tried many times to return to the plains. Each time the vampyre drove him back at the border. He has not set hoof in Avaric for twelve years."
"He has been here twelve years?" said Aeriel. "But I thought..."
The lyon nodded. "It is just as I said. He has been dead twelve years."
"But," Aeriel began, "I saw him living----"
The Pendarlon shook his head. "Daughter, have you never heard that phantoms walk at noon?"
Aeriel looked at the heap of bleached bone on the dune before her. The slight desert wind breathed soft against her skin, lifted her hair. She gazed at her feet. She felt empty of a sudden, and utterly alone. Her quest had failed; the starhorse was dead. She heaved a little sigh, felt starved for air. Her heart hurt; her throat hurt.
"Then it is hopeless," she whispered, "and it was hopeless from the first. Why did you not tell me at once that he was dead?"
"Because it makes no matter," said the Pen-darlon.
"No matter?" cried Aeriel. "The starhorse is fallen. He cannot come back with me. Now the darkangel can never be vanquished, and I cannot save his wives. All is lost, and I have failed."
"Nothing is lost," the lyon said, "nor have you failed. Sing me the rime again."
Aeriel did so, repeating it dully:
"On Avaric's white plain
where the icarus now wings To steeps of Terrain
from tour-of-the-kings,
And damoiels twice-seven
his brides have all becomes
Afar cry from heaven
and a long road from home—
Then strong-hoof of the starhorse must hallow him..."
She was midway through the third coupling when the Pendarlon stopped her. "There.
That line. Say it over."
Aeriel drew breath and started to repeat it. " 'Then strong-hoof of the starhorse must...' "
"Ah, child," the lyon cried, "do you not see? The hoof, the hoof is your prize—not the equustel himself."
Aeriel stared at the warden before her and wondered if of a sudden he could have gone mad. She shook her head to clear it, tried to find her tongue again. "Pendarlon, what do you mean?"
A laugh purred deep in the lyon's throat. "You have but to take his hoof, daughter, and your quest is done."
Surely his manner was not mad, she reflected, uncertainly, though his words made no sense to her. She glanced at the skeleton of the Avarclon. Abruptly, she remembered the duarough's words: "Seek after the starhorse—he of the strong hoof, undying. Bring back what you may of him, for it is by the hoof of the starhorse that the icarus will fall." Bring back what you may of him. At the time she had thought he must mean news.
She stood a moment, indecisive. Could the little mage have meant the horse's hoof?
Aeriel snorted; and yet she had already seen and heard of stranger things. If only he had had time to explain! The Pendarlon sat watching her as she eyed the hooves of the skeleton. Well, there could be no harm, at least, in taking one. Still she felt uneasy.
"I cannot rob the dead," she told him.
"The dead are dead," the leosol replied. "They have given up their bodies. He will not mind that you borrow his hoof for a little. Truly, you may do more good than you know by it."
He started across the dune toward the starhorse. Aeriel hesitated.
"Come, daughter," he said, glancing to northwestward. "We must away before much longer, or I shall not get you back to the border by nightfall."
Aeriel stood a moment, wondered on the direction of his glance. Their way home lay south. She followed him to the scattered bones. Kneeling in the sand, she murmured,
"Which hoof?"
"The forehoof on the near side," said the leosol.
Aeriel grasped it gently and it came off in her hand. The other hooves were dull grey, almost leaden in hue. The one in her hand, however, was bright and gleamed like some precious metal. Aeriel held it cupped in her hand a long moment, gazing at it. "But how?"
she wondered aloud. "What virtue is there in this hoof now?"
"Come, child," said the Pendarlon, with another glance to the western north. "The duarough will know."
Aeriel opened the mouth of her black velvet bag and slid the hoof inside. She drew the mouth closed and let the pouch drop limp and empty-seeming against her breast beneath her smock. Solstar blazed down. Taking her walking stick in hand once more, she turned to the lyon and mounted his back. He wheeled swift as lightning and sprang away in a lithe leap over the dunes. They rose into the air and touched down, rose and touched down. The lyon ran in long, tireless strides, and soon they had left the equustel far behind.
10. The Witch's Dogs
Aeriel and the lyon set off across the sand, traveling southward, away from the center of the world and toward the border of the plain. But it seemed to Aeriel, as she sat or lay along the leosol's back, ate or slept or gazed at the endless dunes beneath the stars, that a subtle difference was present now. Some aspect of the lyon's stride, or breath, or the flexing of muscles along his back betrayed tension. Though the Pendarlon said never a word, Aeriel found herself now and again glancing back to scan the dunes behind, marked by the lyon's trail of pawprints over the sand.
They were little more than halfway to the borderland when Aeriel spotted their pursuers.
Solstar had declined midway toward the east horizon. What she saw were then no more than white specks far, a very long way behind them and loping eastward out of the western north. At first Aeriel thought nothing of them, guessing whatever they were—be it loping dogs or deer or long-legged running birds—would cross her and the lyon's trail far back, at a slant, and continue on to the east. Then she saw one of the creatures—still no more than a pale dot—stop dead behind them over the lyon's tracks and heard it sing out a strange, savage-sweet cry, as if calling its fellows to trail.
Even from afar, the cry reached faintly, clearly to Aeriel's ears. She felt the lyon suddenly tense; he jerked his head around. "Odds," she heard him rumble, "I was afraid of that—
that those two might be to their mistress and back before I could get you safely to the plain."
"Back?" said Aeriel. She could not remember having seen such a pack of creatures before. And there were more than two, at least a dozen of them fallen in behind the leading pair and coursing down the trail. They were still too far for her to make out clearly what they were. "Pendarlon, what are they?"
But the lyon only said, "Hold tight, daughter, and let me save my breath for running.
Happily, if we can lose them, you will not need to know."
His answer puzzled her, frightened her. Aeriel buried her forearms in the leosol's fiery mane, tightened her knees as the sunlion launched into a faster pace. The wind whipped at her. Aeriel pressed herself against the Pendarlon, glanced back. Their pursuers had gained a little, were near enough now for Aeriel to see they were four-footed and smaller than the great cat by several times. She turned back to the lyon.
"But why do we flee, then?" she cried in his ear. "Are you not Pendarlon, and every natural denizen of this region your ally?"
She heard the leosol laugh, a hard-edged laugh with no humor in it. "Ah, these are no natural creatures, daughter. They belong to the white witch of the lake."
"The lake?" said Aeriel slowly, more to herself than to him. Memory stirred. "A still, dead lake in the middle of a canyon—at desert's western edge?" She remembered the story Dirna had told her, the last tale she had told the darkangel. "But what business has this witch with you?"
"She seeks to rule my ward," replied the lyon, panting, "as the icarus now rules Avaric."
Despite his shortness of breath, his tone was low and measured. "She has dwelt in that lake sinc
e before my making and cannot be driven out, but though she herself is confined to its waters, she sends her spials and catspaws out over my desert, working her mischief—I kill them when I can."
Aeriel let out her own breath then, realized she had been holding it. She felt cold, leaned closer to the sunlion's warmth.
"But now," the Pendarlon was saying, "I think I would rather outrun these than fight. I have you to look after—and your prize."
Aeriel eased her grip on the lyon just long enough to touch the little black velvet bag that hung, still empty-seeming, from the thong about her neck. Her heavy-knobbed walking stick lay slung from her wrist, tapping against her leg and side as the leosol sped. Aeriel turned again to look behind her, and her heart recoiled. Gradually, steadily, the witch's creatures were lessening the space between themselves and their quarry. Solstar had traveled three times its own diameter farther toward horizon's edge when they drew close enough for Aeriel to make out clearly what they were.
They looked to her like long-legged dogs, with great upright ears, massy, humping shoulders, and whisk-hair tails. They were pale, very pale in color, a ghostly hue that shone like dim earth-shine. And they were spotted, their backs and sides covered with broken rosettes like those of pards—blots the blackness of an ermine's eye, or a starless night, or a darkangel's wings. Aeriel shivered suddenly, realizing she had seen two such creatures before, from a distance, as the lyon had borne her to the equustel.
They ran in two long lines of a half-dozen each, these dogs, flanking the leosol's trail.
The lines alternately lengthened and bunched—never stable, never steady. Their members constantly sprang sideways, over each other's backs as they ran, changing places, like gazelles. The luminous pallor of their coats hung like haze before Aeriel's vision; the darkness of their spots seemed to shimmer and shift. She found .she could watch them only in glances, or her head began to ache and her stomach stir uneasily.
They were singing a song as they came, a crooning that soared and dropped suddenly down scales with never a pause for breath. It made Aeriel's ears ring. But it was only when they had drawn even closer that Aeriel noticed their eyes. Intense and angry red as carbuncles they glowed —eyes with neither iris, nor pupil, nor lid.
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