Part 5 (1/2)
The dark girl laughed, leaning back on one elbow and poking at the dry sand. ”She scarcely needs spies and catspaws to tell her the whereabouts of an army this size.”
Aeriel put the pearl away. She felt one corner of her mouth tighten. ”Does she not wonder at our number, at our strength?”
Erin found an old bead lying in the sand and held it up. It was deeply reddish, with a hole bored through one end, and carved of sandsh.e.l.l. The dark girl shrugged. ”She knows our destination well enough. Perhaps she doesn't care.”
”But she should care,” muttered Aeriel. ”This seeming unconcern uneases me.”
Erin tossed the blood-colored bead aside and sat up, studying Aeriel. ”Perhaps that is her intent, to unease you. This whole business hangs on you-somehow.”
”On me?” scoffed Aeriel. ”Only great good chance has put me where I am.”
The dark girl shook her head. ”More than chance, my true and only friend. There is a kind of power on you.”
”What power have I?” insisted Aeriel. ”When Irrylath generals the Lady's Istern troops, Sabr the forces of the West-”
”None of which would now be gathered but for you,” Erin cut in gently. ”The tales you told and the Torches you lit upon your quest to rescue the gargoyles have awakened half the people in the land. You have opened their eyes to the Witch and shown them the urgency of overthrowing her-today, tomorrow, soon-lest we all perish, thirsting to death.”
Aeriel ran her hand over the fine, crusted sand. It felt cool and smooth as water in the bright stars.h.i.+ne. If only it were water, she thought grimly. If the moisture-stealing lorelei were not stopped soon, the whole world would succ.u.mb to famine and drought. Again Aeriel shook her head.
”I don't even know the rest of the rime,” she murmured, ”the rime Ravenna made so long ago to riddle all this out and show us how to unmake the Witch. I only have the first two-thirds.”
Leaning back against the dune once more, Erin began to sing in a voice that was low and true:
”On Avaric's white plain, where an icarus now wings To steeps of Terrain from Tour-of-the-Kings, And damozels twice-seven his brides have all become: A far cry from heaven, a long road from home- Then strong-hoof of a 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.”
Aeriel let her mind wander back, remembering how she had found and freed the enchanted Ions in the fires of Orm before the Witch's remaining darkangels could recapture them.
”But first there must a.s.semble ones icari would claim.
A bride in the temple must enter the flame, With steeds found for six brothers, beyond a dust deepsea, And new arrows reckoned, a wand given wings- ”
The rime recounted the rescued Ions agreeing to serve as steeds for Prince Irrylath's Istern brothers, the magical silver arrowheads forged by Talb the Mage for the Lady Syllva, and the Ancient white messenger bird that had come to Aeriel, melding with her wooden staff to become for a time its living figurehead.
”That when a princess-royal's to have tasted of the tree...”
She remembered the taste of a strange golden fruit upon her tongue-sharp, yet so tremendously sweet. The dark girl sang on:
”Then far from Esternesse's city, these things: A gathering of gargoyles, a feasting on the stone, The Witch of Westernesse's hag overthrown.”
The gargoyled Ions all a.s.sembled at Orm, a dreadful sacrifice upon an Ancient altar, and the Witch's red-eyed harridan falling screaming from the highest ledge...
Aeriel came to herself with a start, realizing that Erin had reached the end of the second long stanza-the last stanza anyone knew-and had stopped singing. The pale girl shook herself and gazed at her friend, wondering.
”Where did you hear that song?” she said. ”I never knew it had a tune before.”
Erin laughed. ”All the camp's singing it. Some bard's doing. Volunteers, when they come, march in singing it. I would not be surprised if it is all over Westernesse by now.” She smiled devilishly. ”Your notoriety spreads.”
Aeriel looked wryly away for a moment-but her annoyance at Erin's playful needling never lasted. She sighed, thinking of the rime. ”But what is the rest of it?” she asked. ”No one knows. Talb the Mage has no inkling; nor do the Ions, and my maiden-spirits have not spoken to me since Orm.”
She glanced upward at the constellation of pale yellow stars called commonly the Maidens' Dance. Elliptical in shape, it floated overhead like a burning crown.
”How shall I learn the rest of the rime?” Aeriel wondered aloud. ”We're preparing to march, and I don't even know Ravenna's plan!”
Sobering, Erin touched her companion's hand lightly, once. ”Take heart. Everything of which the rime speaks so far has come to pa.s.s. The Witch must know this. Perhaps she has grown so afraid of you now that she has withdrawn into her palace of cold white stone and will not show herself.” The dark girl shrugged. ”In all events, it's no use worrying. I am certain that soon you will discover the last of the rime.”
Aeriel could not help smiling, just a little. Erin always cheered her. But her mood quickly darkened. She fidgeted, biting her lip.
”It's Irrylath I am most uneasy for. He is still within her reach-and the dreams she sends him are dire. I fear for him.”
”I don't,” said Erin sourly. ”He is so full of his army and this war-he spends more time in the company of Avarclon and that Sabr than he does in yours. He never speaks to you; he does not send for you. Is he not your husband?”
”Peace, Erin,” Aeriel said wearily. ”There will be time for all that, after the war.”
But the dark girl shook her head.
”I have heard the rumors flying all over camp, all about this enchantment the White Witch still holds on him,” she exclaimed, ”that he may not lie with you or anyone while the White Witch lives-but I tell you from experience that that is very little of what makes a man, and though he may not lie with you, he might touch you, or talk to you, or even look at you when you are in his company-but no, it is ever 'my troops,” and 'the warhost,” and 'My steed calls me away!” Sabr, that bedaggered bandit, dotes on him.”
Aeriel tensed. ”She is his cousin.”
”So are you. And which of you is his wife?”
Aeriel felt the knot beneath her breastbone tighten. She gripped a handful of desiccated sand suddenly as though she meant to hurl it at Erin. The near tents sighed in the wind. Aeriel opened her fingers and let the sand trickle away. ”I'll not speak of this.”
”No, you never will,” snapped Erin. She gazed off across the camp, between the airy pavilions in pale, pale green, ghost blue, and mauve. The set of her jaw told Aeriel that her own refusal to speak had hurt her friend.
”It is not...” she began, groping. ”It is only that we hardly know one another, Irrylath and I.”
Erin looked back at her sidelong. ”I have known you far less time than he,” she said softly, ”and already I love you well.”A stone rose in Aeriel's throat. She put her arms around the dark girl. For a moment, Erin's cheek rested against her breast. ”I am so glad you did not go back to your people after Orm,” she whispered. ”You are my strength. You came on to Esternesse for my sake, didn't you?”
Looking up, Erin shook her head and patted Aeriel's cheek. Her palm was cool and dry. ”No, dear one,” she said. ”For mine. I never had a friend before.”
She rose.
”But I will leave you now,” she said, ”for I see you want to be alone. I will be at the campfires of my folk, trying to remember their-our-tongue.”