A Gathering of Gargoyles

by Pierce, Meredith Ann

  "You have such green eyes, child," she said, "like beryl stones. They remind me of my birth-sister, who was regent here when I wed the Avaric king and followed him across the Sea-of-Dust into the west." The Lady sighed a little, sadly. "She went merchanting after my return. I have not had word of her in many years."

  Aeriel felt her fair skin flush. All during her childhood in Terrain, her mistress Eoduin had teased her unmercifully for her odd-colored eyes. Syllva was speaking again.

  "Eryka," she murmured. "My sister's name was Eryka."

  She stopped herself suddenly, drew breath and stood, gazing past Aeriel. The Terrainean girl turned and saw Solstar now three-quarters sunk away.

  "Time's short; I had not realized," the Lady Syllva said. "I must to kirk, but afterward, I would talk with you more, dear heart, about my son. I am troubled for him, and for you.

  Say you will sup with me."

  TWO

  2

  Irrylath

  Aeriel nodded. The Lady rose and departed. Aeriel sat alone once more in the high palace room. Night's shadow came running, swept over the city. The chamber was suddenly dark. The Sea beyond gleamed, restless by starlight, reflecting its own inner fire.

  No Oceanus rode the heavens. That planet, like a fixed blue eye, had slipped beneath the rim of the world before she and Irrylath had reached Isternes. She gazed at the dark between the stars and had an eerie sense of something unfinished, some task left undone.

  She felt as though she had lost something.

  Aeriel arose, leaving the bandolyn, and crossed the smooth stone floor to the hall.

  Hurrying down the long, empty corridors, she found a door into the garden. Winding paths there lost themselves among hummocks of plume grass, bee's-wing and cat's-toes.

  Aeriel found herself at stream's edge suddenly, heard someone calling her name.

  Glancing up, she spotted the Lady's six secondborn sons under the lacewillow trees.

  These were the sons she had borne after Irrylath, after the Avaric king had set her aside and she had returned to Isternes.

  "Sister!" cried Arat and Nar. "Aeriel!" They were the eldest two, twenty and twenty-one.

  They stood in their long gowns of black and red, fists upon their hips.

  Syril and Lern, birthbrothers, both nineteen, sat before on cushions of pale blue and green. "Come," they cried, rolling up their gilt-edged scroll. "We are weary of tales out of books."

  Scholarly Poratun, eighteen, knelt alongside. "Tell us one of your own," he bade her.

  "Or we shall die," finished Hadin, the youngest at seventeen, sprawled in his yellow, chin resting on his palms.

  Aeriel could not help smiling. Lern and Syril moved apart to let her sit between them.

  "Tell us of Ravenna," Poratun said.

  Aeriel sighed. Did they never tire of the tale? It had been barely a year since she had learned it herself, how in ancient days Old Ones of Oceanus had plunged across deep heaven in chariots of fire to waken this, their planet's moon, to life, to fashion beasts and herbs and people for it, to bring it moisture and air.

  Then after a time, the Ancients had gone away again, back to their blue world of water and cloud—only a few remaining behind, shut up in their cities of crystalglass. Of these, Ravenna had been the last to withdraw, lingering while she fashioned the Ions, one great beast for every land: the starhorse Avarclon for the white plain of Avaric, the cockatrice of Elver, the gryphon of Terrain. These Ions, the Wardens-of-the-World, were to watch and guard in their maker's stead until some unknown future time when Ravenna promised to return.

  But a witch had come into the world since then, a lorelei with darkangels for "sons." Six of these icari were already abroad and six Ions besides the Avarclon had already fallen prey to them. Lost— six of Ravenna's wardens lost. Where their bones lay, no one knew.

  Yet the seventh, Avarclon, the last to fall, might be brought to life again. Aeriel had found his remains in the desert, brought back a bit of him to Isternes—one hoof. It was enough. Even now the priestesses of the great kirk were working to restore the starhorse to life. It would take them a year—a whole year!—they said, to call back from the void the starhorse's soul, create for him new flesh and blood and bone.

  Aeriel felt herself shivering, even in the warm garden air. A useless urgency gnawed at her. There was nothing more she might do to help. She was only an unlearned girl, who knew nothing of ancient arts and sorcery. Her defeat of the dark-angel had been only by great good chance. Surely now her part against the witch was done. All she could do was wait.

  "Yes, tell us of Ravenna," Syril was saying. "That is a tale we never heard before you came."

  But Aeriel felt restless still. "No tales, I pray you," she told them. "Another time. But why are the six of you not in kirk?"

  Then Arat laughed. "We are going to a revel in the city."

  Hadin caught hold of Aeriel's arm. "Come with us, sister. You look in need of cheering."

  But Aeriel shook her head, pulled free of him. "No, no. I must find Irrylath," and realized only then that it was true. She had come into the garden in search of Irrylath.

  "Our brother is in the kirk," started Lern. "He is always there."

  "He waits to see the starhorse reborn," said Syril. "Nothing gives him any pleasure but that, to know he will soon have a winged steed."

  "If only there were more than one winged steed in the world," she heard Nar murmuring,

  "I would join our brother in his ride against the icari—"

  Hadin interrupted them. "He is not there, in kirk. I saw him here in the garden, just lately."

  Aeriel arose. "Tell me where I may find him."

  Hadin had risen with her. "There," he said, "I saw him through the hedge beyond the lilygrass. I called to him, but he gave no answer, strode away. He had a bow in hand."

  Aeriel turned, following the line of his arm. She was wild to be gone suddenly, as if the world hung on her going. She must find her husband, Irrylath. Nodding her thanks to Hadin and the others, she sped away.

  He stood, bow drawn, quiver slung from one hip, a target standing a hundred paces from him. The cord of his bow tripped, sang, and the arrows glinted like slips of light. Irrylath turned as Aeriel drew near.

  "Your mother came to me this hour," she said softly, "and spoke of you."

  Irrylath caught his breath. "What did she say?"

  "She asked me to speak of... before we came."

  She saw him pale, his blue eyes flash. "What have you told her?"

  "Nothing," said Aeriel, "I have not said already in your presence. She knows you dream."

  He gazed through her, his expression grown suddenly bleak. She felt herself breathe slowly two times, three. It was as if he had forgotten she were there.

  "When I was under the witch's spell," he said, softly, "and I heard your tales of mortal things that grew and lived and changed, dreams of those things came to me, drove me half mad, for I wanted them again, and could not have them."

  Aeriel gazed at him in slow surprise. It was the most he had said to her at one time since they had come to Isternes. A little tremor stirred in her breast.

  "And now," she breathed, "what do you dream?"

  Silence. Nothing. Then:

  "I dream," he started, stopped. He looked at her, then swiftly off, as though the sight of her eyes somehow frightened him. "No," he whispered. "I will not say."

  Aeriel clutched her fingers together, drew nearer. "Do you dream," she began, "do you dream, now that you are among living things again, of the lorelei's house?"

  He let out his breath, almost a groan. "Her house is cold," said Irrylath, "so very still.

  Nothing changes there. No sound but silence there, or din. No music save her strange crooning. Her house is made all of crystal stone, so dry that garments brushed against it cling. It will take the skin from your fingers if you touch it."

  He had closed his eyes. Aeriel shook her head. "You are in your mother's house now.
/>   You are not in the witch's house anymore."

  "When I was young," said Irrylath, "the lorelei called herself my mother. She laid her cold hand on my breast and called me 'son.'" His face looked haggard in the starlight.

  "You are no longer hers," cried Aeriel. "I unmade that darkangel."

  "There are times," he muttered, "when I wish you had told the Lady Syllva all, at the start— saved her her wondering and me this... pretense." He spoke through gritted teeth.

  "She does not know me."

  Aeriel looked at him. She felt as if she were falling endlessly away from him. Her eyelids stung. "You are her son."

  "You do not know me," he almost spat, gasping as though he were strangling.

  "My husband," she managed, her voice a faltering creak. His eyes were fierce and blue as lampwicks burning low and starved for air.

  "Am I?" he cried. "Am I that, Aeriel? Do you think a wedding toast can make it so?"

  He strode hard away from her then, not looking back. Aeriel held herself very still. Her heart felt suddenly all made of stone, and if she moved too quickly, or breathed too deep, she was afraid it might fall into dust.

  She watched him wrenching the darts from the far target. When he swung around, he started, seeing her, and she realized he had expected her to go. He came on after a moment; his garments, pale, gleamed against the night. For a moment she half believed he was the darkangel again.

  A frown passed over his features as he neared her. That broke her from her motionlessness. She whirled.

  He cried out, "Wait."

  She halted suddenly, from sheer surprise, feeling his hand upon her arm. It was the first time he had touched her since they had come to Isternes.

  "You weep."

  His tone was much softer now, his breath not steady yet. Aeriel blinked, and only then felt tears spilling warm along her cheeks.

  "Aeriel," he said. "Aeriel, don't weep."

  She hardly heard. Dismay made all her limbs feel light. She tried to speak, but the words choked her, came out in sobs. She felt the prince's hand upon her tighten. My husband, she thought. What have I done? The witch made you a darkangel once. What thing have I made you, that you are so cruel?

  "I meant you no harm," she managed at last, "when I cut out your heart. I meant only to free you from the lorelei's power."

  She could not look at him. Her whole frame shook.

  "Not your bride," she gasped. "I see that now. What am I then—your tormentor?" He said something. He was bruising her arm. "Is that why you loathe me?" she cried.

  She pulled free of him, fleeing, across the huge and starlit garden. Airy and lush it sprawled. She could not find her way, found herself longing wildly for the west, for the pale ghostlight of Oceanus overhead. These Istern lands to which she had come were altogether a darker and more shadowy place.

  If Irrylath called after her, she did not hear him. She did not want to hear. She put her hands over her ears, and ran.

  3

  Messengers

  Aeriel lay on a low, flat couch in the outer chamber of the apartments the Lady had given them. Save for herself, the suite stood empty. She had sent the attendants all away, bade one beg the Lady to excuse her from supping.

  The room was dark, completely still, no lampwicks burning in other chambers. Starlight through the windows lit dim squares upon the floor. Aeriel traced the smooth, uneven pattern in the wood of the couch's side. It was wet. Her cheeks were wet. Aeriel sat up, sighing. She blinked, momentarily giddy from having lain so long.

  "This is witless," she told herself. "I am worn out with weeping. I should sleep."

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the cool stone of the wall. She felt herself growing very still, and something, some thread, spinning out of her into the night.

  The light around her began to change. She perceived, without turning, night sky over Isternes. Low over the west, the ring of yellow stars formed like a crown, or maidens dancing, began to shift and lose its shape. Thirteen pricks of yellow light drifted toward her over the Sea-of-Dust.

  Silently, like fireflies they came, and entered the room through the broad windows on either side of her. Golden flickers, each no bigger than a hand, they alighted upon the dark floor in a circle with Aeriel at the head.

  Then like someone turning up the wicks of thirteen lamps at once, the little fires expanded, growing brighter, until they stood narrow and tall as women. Aeriel felt a warmth, almost a pressure upon her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she beheld thirteen maidens of golden light.

  Only three daymonths ago they had been the wraiths, the vampyre's stolen brides. Aeriel had rescued them, spun thread for their garments on a spindle that drew from the spinner's own heart. Then she had stood with the wraiths in the dark-angel's tower, watching their withered bodies crumble, their freed souls ascend. Upon her right stood the first she had saved, the one called Marrea, and upon her left, the icarus' last bride before Aeriel.

  "Eoduin," said Aeriel.

  The lightmaiden smiled. "Yes, companion."

  "You have come back to me."

  "For a little," another said. "We followed the thread you spun for us."

  She gave a twitch on something Aeriel could not see, though she felt a strange, subtle tugging against her heart. "I spun no thread."

  "Who has once mastered that golden spindle," Marrea said, "never loses the knack."

  Aeriel shook her head, not understanding. "I have been so alone. Why have you not come to me before?"

  Eoduin knelt. "We may come only along the path you make, and until this hour, your heart has spun no strand long enough to find us, or strong enough to hold."

  The maiden standing beside her sighed, fiddling with something between her fingers.

  "Despair's a heavy strand, though very strong."

  "Next time you must spin joy, Aeriel," another maiden said.

  "Yes, joy."

  "There's a thread."

  Aeriel put both hands against her breast, against the ache. Her heart felt bruised.

  "Leave off," said Marrea suddenly, sternly. The maidens abruptly ceased their riddling, eyed one another with guilty glances.

  "Why have you come?" said Aeriel.

  Beside her, Marrea knelt as Eoduin had done. "Deep heaven is a rare place. We like it very well. All there is light and unencumbering, and we may dance together as much as we choose."

  "But we saw you were unhappy," another said.

  "Here in a strange country."

  "With your chieftain's son."

  "We never liked him."

  Aeriel sat up then, let her hands fall from her breast. "He is not the same creature who stole you away. He is no more the darkangel."

  "That is true," one maiden said.

  "But still the White Witch whispers to him."

  "In dreams."

  "Dreams," breathed Aeriel. "Do you know his dreams?"

  "He dreams," said Eoduin, laying her hands on Aeriel's knees, "of a long, narrow hall, all of the cold crystal stone that makes the witch's house."

  "The witch sits before him at the far end of the hall," another maiden said, "upon a siege as white as salt."

  "She holds in hand a fine silver chain that binds the young man's wrist. 'Come back to me, my love, my own sweet son,' she calls."

  "Then she begins to gather in the chain."

  Aeriel flinched. "He would not tell me. He has never told me what he dreamed."

  None of the maidens spoke.

  "Does he go to her?" breathed Aeriel. "What happens in the dream?"

  "We do not know," one maiden said.

  "He does not know."

  "He cannot know, Aeriel."

  "Until."

  " 'Until,' " said Aeriel. " 'Until'?"

  "Until he finishes the dream," Eoduin replied. "Until you let him."

  "Each time he dreams, he wakens—or you waken him."

  "You must leave him to his dreams," said Marrea.

  Another echoed, "You mu
st leave him."

  Aeriel turned her head, dropped her gaze, tried to look away, but the maidens surrounded her.

  They burned silently, like pale golden fire, watching her.

  "I know it," said Aeriel. "I know."

  She said nothing then. The maidens did not speak. At length she said, "Where will I go?"

  "Across the Sea-of-Dust," said Eoduin. "A task awaits you there."

  "A task?" Aeriel shook her head. "My part in this is done. The rest is Irrylath's."

  The maidens shook their heads. All of them were kneeling now.

  "You are wrong, love," said Eoduin. Her fingers of golden light still rested on Aeriel's knees. "Tell us again the rime you learned for the undoing of the darkangel."

  Aeriel looked at her and thought back. She remembered the duarough, who had taught her the rime. A little man only half her height, with his stone grey eyes and long, twined beard... Aeriel turned her head away from Eoduin. The words of the duarough's rime came slowly to her, but she knew them too well to forget.

  "On Avaric's white plain,

  where the icarus now wings

  To steeps of Terrain

  from tour-of-the-kings,

  And damo^els 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."

  She paused a moment, drawing breath.

  "I broke the spell upon the darkangel using a cup made of the starhorse's hoof," Aeriel said dully, "and hallowed his heart, as I had never guessed to do, by making it mortal again. Irrylath will be the Warrior, and Avarclon the Warhorse that the wise ones are working to restore."

  "Listen to this, then," said Marrea. "What does this mean to you?

  "But first there must assemble

  those the icari would claim, A bride in the temple

  must enter the flame,

  Steeds found for the secondbom beyond

  the dust deepsea, And new arrows reckoned, a wand