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.
