Aeriel scooped up a handful as she passed, it was so pretty, and tied it away in one sleeve of Hadin's robe. As soon as it had dried, she had wrapped her bandolyn in that to keep out the dust, the grey-green wax as well. The dustshrimp carefully picked out the few grains of blue that had fallen into the hold and devoured them. Aeriel fed it another pinch, all it would eat, and after that, its crystal shell was blue.
She passed a cluster of islands once, arranged in a broad semicircle, coming within a mile of only one of them, the farthest on one horn of the crescent. In the distance, upon its beach she saw boats, long and slender, turned up at the ends like Istern slippers. Against the pale sand of the shore, she thought she saw dark figures moving.
And then to her surprise, for she had been looking to the island and forgetting to steer, she found herself almost upon an outlying reef. She had to tack quickly, very hard, to avoid being dashed.
Upon those jagged rocks knelt a boy, very black, naked but for a skirt about his legs.
He was raising a crab net from the dust and plucking the crabs from it, tossing them into a close-woven basket. He had not seen her. But glancing up then as she passed, not four paces from him, she leaning hard against the sail lines and tiller to bank the craft, he did see her, and started up.
They stared at one another as she swept past: the slim, dark boy—even his eyes were black— and the fair-skinned girl. Two crabs freed themselves from his dangling net, dropped to the reef and scuttled across. They buried themselves in the breaking dust.
The breeze off the island freshened then, billowed the sail, plucked Aeriel suddenly out to sea. The dark cliffs and the crabfisher fell away behind. Not many hours and sleeps after that, Aeriel spotted the western shore—pale forested hills of Bern rising beyond the strand. The Sea had turned greenish here, closer to shore, and the fortnight was almost done.
Approaching shore, Aeriel came aware of a hollow booming. She saw spray flying ahead of her—starlit dust, finer than fine—then glimpsed through the valleys of waves, rocks jagged as dogs' teeth. The shining combers leapt over and between.
Aeriel took the tiller and sail lines in hand. She tacked for an hour along the coast, but the rocks stretched endlessly, barring the shore. Does it go on forever? she wondered at last, when her arms had grown so sore they were numb. Dawnlight touched the peaks beyond the shore, gilding them in its harsh white glare.
Then suddenly beneath the boat, she felt motion. The craft tilted; one skate lifted from the dust. Aeriel nearly lost her balance. She luffed sail and leaned. The craft began righting itself, but the current had swept her much closer to shore. Aeriel struggled with the lines, trying to tack the little boat away.
A narrow headland jutted into the Sea not a half mile before her. A tall tower stood upon its tip, high above the waves which whipped around the headland's bend like rapids, leaping the teeth of the rocks.
Two lines of reef ran parallel there, overlapping their curves in a brief corridor. The inner line petered out just before the outer curved sharply inward, out of sight beyond the headland's bend.
Aeriel saw then, running ahead of her just under the surface of the green and shining Sea, a broad ribbon of reddish rose. Some current of different-colored dust? It undulated like an eel through the narrow passage. She followed it.
Rocks closed around her on both sides. She felt the racing red current beneath the skates, die pull upon the sail of wind whipping around the bend. The wall of rocks to shoreward ended; the right curve loomed. Aeriel leaned, tacked, luffed sail with all her strength.
She felt the right skate grate upon the stone. Its pole splintered. The craft leaned hard, hard to port, trying to turn. She felt the tiller graze the rocks, groan, split in her hand. The hold bucked, buckled underfoot.
The mast toppled. She felt the sail pulling free, beginning to drag her. She grabbed frantically, at anything. Something hard and silk-wrapped came away in her grasp. Her hand slipped on the sail line and the sail snatched away. It billowed toward shore. Aeriel found herself sinking.
She floundered, trying to wade, but nothing was solid under her feet. Incoming waves surged, shoving her. She pitched forward, closed her eyes and held her breath. The beach lay diirty paces off and she could not reach it. She was smodiering in dust.
Something underneath her heaved, lifting her, carrying her toward shore. She felt air around her once again, and gasped. Blinking, she tried to see. The green of the Sea had turned vermilion.
Just for a moment, her knees and palm felt something solid, rough as overlapping shingles, warm to the touch, not cool like the fine, friction-less dust. Then she was ashore, dashed against the hard, flat stones.
Gasping, she crawled forward out of the surf. Something dragged along the ground beside her. She saw with surprise it was her bandolyn, still wrapped in Hadin's yellow robe. Aeriel's limbs gave out. About her legs, dry spume ran like water through the interstices of the rocks. She rolled onto her back, stared up into the black dawn sky.
A huge head, fringed with vermilion feathers, rose from the Sea and stared at her with serpentine, unblinking eyes.
That image of the serpent's eyes re-mained in her dreams until Aeriel awoke. It was day.
She lay on the warmth of hard, scaly shore. She brushed the dust from her eyes and raised her head from the dry shingle. Light lay upon the headland now, though the broad beach below was still in shadow. Her nightmare of the serpent's head was gone. She rolled onto her belly, pushed herself to her knees, and realized that she still held the silk-wrapped bandolyn. She fumbled with the robe, unwound it hurriedly, but the little silver-wood instrument seemed undamaged.
A short distance from her lay the wreckage of her craft. She rose and went to it, but the wood was in splinters, the hempcloth sail in shreds. Her provisions had all been swept away. Aeriel sighed and champed her teeth. Her stomach shifted against itself.
I shall never reach the sibyl in Orm, nor find the lost Ions of Westernesse, she told herself, if I starve to death on this beach. She laughed a little. Truly, now is a time when I could make use of the duarough's velvet pouch!
Just as she was turning away from the wreck, she caught sight of a stirring in the broken hold. In a moment, her crystal dustshrimp emerged from a pocket of dust, waving its tiny pincers. Aeriel found herself laughing again, knelt and put it in one fold of her garment.
"Well," she said, "we will see what food may be found to feed both of us."
The beach behind lay empty as far as she could see. The sheer cliff before seemed at first to be featureless white stone, but drawing near, Aeriel spotted a stair cut into the rock.
The steps were only a half pace wide, and steep. Aeriel climbed slowly.
Reaching the top, she saw the headland was very narrow. Beyond, a strip of beach ran off into the distance beneath the same white cliffs. She found herself very near the round stone tower. A tree grew just at the tower's base.
Its slender trunk was crooked and many-branching, with dark reddish skin and small, pale leaves. Hanging upon the nearest bough, just at the level of her eye, Aeriel saw a fruit. It was only half the size of her doubled fist, and made in lobes so that it looked almost heart-shaped. Rose gold in color, very dark, it shone like amber in the morning light.
The fruit was warm to her touch; Solstar had baked it. Its smooth skin was covered with fine hairs, like bees' fur. It came away easily from the stem when she pulled on it. The crystal leaves tinkled. The gnarled branches swayed. Its aroma was like honey browned in cinnamon.
Aeriel felt weak. She brushed the fuzz; it fell away like reddish dust. Beneath, the skin was gold. She bit into the fruit. Its nectar was warm and sweet, the flesh tender and tasting of spice. Aeriel swallowed, savoring. Her weariness began to fade.
A few more bites left only the hard seed. The last scrap of fruit she began feeding the dust-shrimp.
"Thief!"
Aeriel turned in surprise.
"Stealer of apricoks!"
The voi
ce came from the tower behind her.. The dustshrimp hid itself in a fold of her shift. A person, very ragged and bent, appeared in a doorway to one side of the tree.
"Thief of my apricoks—thought you might simply have one and be off?"
The thin figure hobbled toward her, using a stick. Aeriel stared. Grassy weeds grew across the threshold. The tree stood unpruned. The tower within was dark.
"I did not know that anyone lived here," she began.
"Didn't know?" the old person cried. "Thought the tower built itself, I vow." It picked at and arranged its long, shabby robe. "A body cannot doze a moment but thieves come slinking...."
"I am no thief," insisted Aeriel. "I did not know the tree was yours. I have just come a very long way and have had no food or drink for hours."
"Not my doing," the other snapped. "Only travelers across the Sea-of-Dust may taste my apricoks."
"I am a traveler across the Sea-of-Dust," Aeriel said.
The person blinked. "Impossible. No one has come across the Mare in years."
"I have just come," answered Aeriel. "I wrecked my craft upon the rocks."
The person peered at her with narrowed eyes, then hobbled to the cliff's edge and gazed over.
"Yes, so, I see your boat," it muttered, coming back. "Smashed into bits. Wonder you weren't, along with it. Well, you are welcome to the fruit in that case—but you must give me the seed."
Aeriel realized she still held the stone in her hand. The old body had snatched it from her before she could offer. "What will you do with it?"
The other only snorted, turning the stone over in bony hands, seemingly lost in thought.
"My name is Aeriel," Aeriel added in a moment, "and I have come from Isternes."
The other stirred. "Esternesse, do you mean?" She nodded. "Hm." The person peered at her again. "You don't dress as those that used to come from Esternesse."
"My first home was Terrain, though I have lived in Avaric since. This garment is from Pendar."
"Well traveled," the person mused. "I take it you mean your kith come from Terrain."
Aeriel shook her head. "I have no kith. I was bought motherless, a babe."
"Bought?" the other exclaimed. "Bought?" Then it shook its head, murmuring, "Hard times that see babes bought in Terrain—elsewhere, too, I'll be bound, if in Terrain. What a long time I have been dozing." It turned back to her then. "But I see you are no longer a slave. Traveling storier—is that what puts you on the road?"
Aeriel fingered the strap of her bandolyn, slung from one shoulder. "So I hope to become." The other said nothing, seemed deep in thought once more. "What are you?"
she ventured.
The person sighed. "Hm? Oh, I keep the tower. I tend the tree." It started away, back toward the doorway. "Come with me if you would see what I'll do with the seed."
5
The Keeper of the Light
Aeriel followed the keeper into the tower. A spiral stair ascended the wall. Aeriel and her guide emerged onto the top of the tower. A vaulted roof rose overhead. The wind gusting off the Sea-of-Dust was strong. At the center of the open chamber stood a dark dais, upon which lay a ring of silver metal, set with spires like a crown. From each point rose a small blue tongue of flame.
"What is it?" Aeriel asked, leaning nearer. The flame burned scentless, clean of smoke.
"What is it?" the person echoed, chafing both hands over the flame. Aeriel could feel no heat. "The beacon, of course. This is a lighthouse, wayfarer. What did you think it was?"
"Lighthouse," murmured Aeriel. The word felt strange upon her tongue. "What is a lighthouse?"
The other gave a snort and wheezed. After a moment, Aeriel realized that this was laughter. "It makes a beam to warn ships off the rocks and show the mariners the only safe landfall hereabouts—what else? How is it you have piloted all the way across the Sea-of-Dust and never heard of a lighthouse?"
Aeriel had no time to make reply. The keeper sighed.
"Ah, I remember, before they stopped coming, how the big ships used to lie off the coast.
I with my raft ferried their goods in to shore. Then there was work—and never a wreck."
The keeper glanced sharply at Aeriel. "You'd not have wrecked your craft, either, wayfarer, if only you'd followed the beam."
Aeriel shook her head. "I saw no beam."
The person eyed her. "No one finds the gap by chance," it said. "The Ancients made these towers, you know. To guide the pilgrims over the Sea, and then inland across the steeps.
They are all connected, deep underground, so that whenever one is fed, the others flare."
The keeper stood gazing off now, shaking its head. Aeriel could not quite follow—were there other towers such as this one? The keeper sighed.
"But they do burn low now. Nothing to feed them since the pilgrimages ceased—oh, I don't know; I've been dozing so long—a hundred years ago." It nodded then. "Yes, most perilously low. Well, I've a remedy for that. Keep wide."
Aeriel fell back at the other's gesture. It cast the seed of her apricok upon the dais, within the crown of light. The flame hissed, flaring, flickered from blue to violet, and then to rose.
Aeriel stood watching. The tongues of fire grew longer, brighter, merging into a single, taller flame. Its color changed to green, to yellow, and still the fire increased until it was as tall as Aeriel.
The flame changed one last time, to white, very brilliant and pure, yet Aeriel found she could look upon it without being dazzled. It stood steady now upon its crown, and though Aeriel still felt wind gusting off the Sea, the cool radiance did not flicker.
"Ah, so much better," a voice beside her said, and turning, Aeriel saw the lighthouse keeper— but not at all as he had appeared to her before.
His robe was neither ragged anymore nor dusty drab, but blue. The color deepened, growing richer as she watched. The person himself stood straighter, seemed neither disheveled nor ancient now, and lean rather than starved. The stick he held was not a gnarled crook at all, but a tall, straight staff.
"Ah, yes, much better," he said again, holding his hands once more to the flame. "How cold one gets between travelers, and how sleepy."
Aeriel stared. "But—I feel no heat from it," she said at last, not knowing what to say.
The person looked up, as though just then remembering her. "No, of course not." He smiled. "You would not, for you have eaten of the tree, and so may see the beacon's light—as I cannot, for I have never tasted that fruit. Was it good, by the way, your apricok?"
"Very good." A little of its taste still lingered in her mouth.
The keeper nodded. "So I have heard, from the travelers. I would not know."
"But why is that," Aeriel began, "when the tree grows at your door?"
The person laughed, came away from the flame, moving with a slight haltness of step to one of the wide windows. He hardly seemed to need his staff.
"Because I am no traveler," he said. "I was not made for journeying, and the tree bears only at need: one fruit for every traveler that fares across the Mare." He sighed and tilted back his head. "They used to come in droves, the travelers. But no more."
"Is that the only thing which feeds the light?" asked Aeriel. "The apricok seeds?"
The keeper nodded. "The tree feeds upon the heart of the world; the pilgrims feed upon its fruit, the flame upon the heart of the fruit, and I upon the flame."
Aeriel studied the person across from her. He had come back from the window now, stood closer to the flame. "And are you no mortal," she asked, "that eats no mortal food?"
The keeper smiled and shook his head. "Mortal, yes, but not like you. Ravenna made me.
I was not born."
Aeriel caught in her breath. "Ravenna," she whispered, "that made the Ions. You are the Ion of Bern...."
But again the keeper shook his head, laughing this time. "No Ion am I," he told her gently. "Bernalon is a great she-wolf that runs along the steeps and shore, warding the land—while I have ne
ver even ventured from this headland to the wood...."
But Aeriel could not keep still. A desperate urgency tugged at her. Perhaps she need not go to Orm. Perhaps she could learn of the Ions here in Bern. Her eyes found the keeper's again.
"Where may I find her—Bernalon? For I must find her, soon, and the other Ions."
The keeper sighed. "I do not know. I have been dozing a hundred years. Not once in all that time have I heard the great wolf crying. The last pilgrim who came here spoke of a battle in the west. Upon the border of Zambul, a winged monster defeating Bernalon and carrying her away."
"A darkangel," whispered Aeriel. Not hers of Avaric, but his "brother," another of the witch's "sons."
"What's that?" the keeper said.
Aeriel looked up. "There is a witch at desert's edge, who steals away babes to raise as her own, making them winged vampyres, the icari, who drink the souls of women. Six darkangels has she now, but her seventh in Avaric has been returned to the living before her magic on him could be made complete. Each icarus in turn overthrew a Ion. One of them I have found already, the Avarclon. But there are six more I must find within the year. One of them is Bernalon."
The keeper turned away again. "Bad times," he murmured, "that see witches and their sons among us."
Aeriel drew breath. "There is a rime," she said. The wild hope that had come to her only moments before was slipping away. She seized at it. "When the Ancient Ones withdrew from us, ages ago, Ravenna foretold the coming of the witch."
The tall, steep-burning flame threw her shadow before her. The keeper stood overlooking the Sea.
"She made the rime, and sang it over the Ions at the time of their making. You are not a Ion, but perhaps you can tell me what it means:
"But first there must assemble
those the icari would claim, A bride in the temple
must enter the flame,
Steeds found for the secondborn beyond
the dust deepsea, And new arrows reckoned, a wand
given wings—
A Gathering of Gargoyles Page 4
