The Darkangel (10 page)

The duarough drew in his breath, and let it out again, then nodded, as to himself. He stooped and drew his laden fishline out of the water and stood twirling it slowly, looking at nothing and frowning fiercely as in thought. "Well enough, then," he murmured, as if reluctant; "well enough. He must be stopped, that is decided, and if not one way, then another. Now, first task is to fetch the chalice-hoof of the immortal horse.... The blade, I think, I can attend to myself, and as for the apparatus ..."

He muttered other things for a few moments then, things utterly incomprehensible to Aeriel. At first she thought to speak, but then let it go. Sitting there, beside the quiet eddy, in the dimness away from the bright gleam of the fire—though the water had a faint radiance of its own, enough to see by—Aeriel felt suddenly sleepy.

The duarough seemed to come to himself presently; he shook his head a trace as if to clear it and knelt on the bank beside Aeriel, began to fumble about in the many hidden pockets of his robe. He drew out a scaling knife and began to scale his catch.

"I will tell you a rime, child," he said, "one I found in a musty old book lying under dust in the archives. It is a prophecy—not a prediction of what
will
be, mind you," he told her;

"no such things exist. But rather a foretelling of what
may
be: a formula for the undoing of the icarus."

Aeriel glanced at him, uneasy, surprised. "I have not said that I will help you," she said, almost beneath her breath. The duarough did not seem to hear. She stared down at her knees, the sand, the water, the opposite shore. Her mind was torn and she knew it should not have been. She should have longed wholeheartedly for the dark-angel's destruction, and she did not. "I must think on it," she told the duarough.

Her companion nodded, turning the fish over in his hand and scaling the other side.

"Think on it, then, daughter," he said; his tone was kind, "at leisure. But learn the rime also. It is a good thing to know. This is the way of it:

"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 become:

Afar cry from heaven

and a long road from home
—

The Riddling Rime
-«a>3 115

Then strong-hoof of the starhorse

must hallow him unguessed

If adamants edge is to plunder his breast.

Then, only, may the Warhorse

and Warrior arise To rally the warhosts, and thunder

the skies...."

"There now, do you have that?" the duarough inquired. He had finished his first fish—put it in his sleeve—and started on the second. "That is only the first four couplings, but so much will suffice for now. Can you say it back to me?"

Aeriel made a clumsy attempt and swallowed a yawn; she wondered how long it had been since she had last slept. The duarough gently corrected her wording, recited the poem again and had her say it back. He slipped the second fish into his sleeve as Aeriel tried again. All twelve tiny cave-fish had disappeared into the pockets of his robe before Aeriel got the lines recited three times correctly.

"Go now," the little man told her, "and rest. You do not look as though you have seen sleep in a long turn of the stars."

Aeriel rose from the sand. Her limbs felt heavy and her eyelids near shutting.

"Tell me," her companion inquired, just before she waded back across the stream, "do you understand it—the rime, I mean?"

Aeriel shook her head, nodding, sleepy. "What does 'hallow him unguessed' mean?" she asked him.

The little man was winding his horsehair line about his pole. "It means to salute, or to challenge, or to pursue him," he answered, "all unawares."

Aeriel frowned, puzzled. "I thought 'hallow* meant to purify or to bless."

The duarough shrugged his shoulders; his lips smiled slightly. "Words can mean different things, mistress. Perhaps it is I who do not understand the rime." He gave her a rush from the fire for light. "Go now, and rest; the sleep will fix your memory—and we can work more on decipherments when you return."

Aeriel nodded and smiled a little, drowsily. She turned and held her rushlight high as she waded back across the stream.

Aeriel awoke in the dark of first nightfall to a sound she had never heard before. It was not the moaning of the wraiths, nor the shrieking of the gargoyles—though they, too, soon added their voices to the uproar. It was rather a kind of shouting, a series of painful cries and then silence again. Or rather, a silencing of the crying voice: the wraiths continued to wail and moan and the gargoyles to chatter and scream as they had not done for many day-months.

Aeriel rose from the mat of rushes where she slept and slipped out into the hall, then down the many steps into the caverns under the castle. As she descended, the cries began again, nearer. Below her, she saw the duarough coming up the bank with a rushlight in one hand.

"What is it?" she cried as she left the last step and her foot touched sandy shore.

Talb came closer to her along the bank. "It is the vampyre, daughter," he said.

"What is wrong with him?" insisted Aeriel. "Is he in pain?"

"Great anguish," the duarough replied, "but not pain. Your tales and stories have given him dreams."

"Dreams?" exclaimed Aeriel. "But he does not sleep...."

"True, true," said the duarough, "he sleeps but yearly, on his wedding night: but that is oblivion, devoid of dreams—a dead and dreamless sleep. No, daughter, these are waking dreams."

Aeriel felt cold and rubbed her arms. "He cries out," she said, "as though afraid. But what is there to fear in dreams?"

The duarough sighed and took the rushlight in his other hand. "Nothing for you and me,"

he said, "for us who live. But he is mostly dead, and he wishes his mind to be dead to all things but what he himself chooses to think."

Aeriel drew back a bit. "How long will they last?" she asked the other softly.

The duarough shrugged. "They will last as long as they last," he replied, "ceasing for a while and then returning—until they have run their course."

The cries redoubled and Aeriel shuddered. "Is nothing to be done? He suffers so."

"Only sleep can cure these dreams," her companion said. "But he has forsaken sleep."

"If this is my doing," said Aeriel, "I must go to him."

"That you must not," said the duarough, almost sharply.

"Perhaps there is something..."

"There is nothing you may do, daughter."

"I might comfort him."

"He would kill you first," the duarough said. "He is searching the castle for you now; did you know it?"

Aeriel drew back again with a sudden alarm. Not since she had first come to the castle had she feared the darkangel—feared to displease him, perhaps, but not for her life.

Gradually she had come almost to disregard his casual threats, for his manner now seemed not at all fearsome to her. Indeed, most times he either treated her with a mocking amusement, or else ignored her altogether.

When first he had brought her to his keep, she had expected death. She had not desired it, but she had been prepared. Now she was not. The wraiths and gargoyles depended on her.

The duarough looked to her for company. And the possibility of somehow undoing the vampyre now also lay before her. Her life seemed suddenly less inconsequential, and she found that she did not at all desire to die.

"Come along," the duarough said; "he will be down here shortly. I shall have to hide you."

Aeriel stood unmoving, felt all will and initiative drain from her. The cries were moving closer. "If he calls to me," she said as she realized the truth of it, "I shall go to him."

"Nonsense," said the duarough. "You are only a very little under his power."

Aeriel shook her head. "I shall not want to obey but I shall have to. I cannot resist, his power has grown on me so."

"Then I will stop your ears with wax," said the duarough, coming forward and grasping her hand. "Now come along."

Aeriel went, hardly realizing at first that she did so. "Where are you taking me?" she said in a moment.

"To the treasure room," he answered, pulling her after him. "I had hoped to get you deeper into the caves, but we've no time now. Don't fear; we shall be safe enough in the treasure room, only we must
hurry."

They splashed across the stream and clambered onto the opposite bank. Aeriel could hear the cries of the vampyre drawing closer, was beginning to be able to distinguish some words. They were disconnected, made no sense, but their effect was hypnotic. She wanted to stop, to listen, to stand forever trying to catch their meaning. The duar-ough pulled her over to the ivory door and practically had to drag her through.

The door closed behind them and the sound of the words diminished. As they moved out from behind the partition and into the room itself, the noise lessened further. There burned the little fire of driftwood in the middle of the room as before. The duarough led her over to it. She realized dimly that the shouting had now ceased altogether. She sank down beside the fire, feeling suddenly very spent.

"I shall go and fetch the wax now," said the duarough. "I shall be gone for a little while.

He will begin calling you again very shortly, no doubt. Do not answer. Do not even listen; hold your ears if you must—and
stay
in this room."

The duarough turned away from her then and left by the other hidden door. Aeriel lay down and laid her head on her arm. She listened to the soft, irregular snapping of the driftwood as it burned. Then she heard the darkangel again; he was much closer. She knew he must be in the caves. He was calling to her. She shut her ears.

Lying on her side, with her ear so close to the ground, she could hear his footsteps crunching back and forth in the sand. She knew he was pacing along the far riverbank, searching for her. He called again, but the rock and her hands on her ears muffled and changed the sound—she could not tell what he said.

She heard a little splash, as though perhaps one of his feet had slipped partway into the water. She heard him cry out in the same moment and scramble back as if the touch of living water burned. There were no footsteps for a while, and then they tramped off down the bank—irregular now, uneven: he was limping.

Aeriel uncovered her ears and sat up. She glanced about her: the empty room stood still and unchanging—all was quiet. She waited, and presently the duarough returned with a lump of beeswax in one hand and a great musty book in the other. He seated himself by the fire and laid the book to one side. Aeriel glanced at it curiously, but did not ask him what it was. He held the beeswax close to the fire to warm it. Aeriel watched him bend and work it with his hands. The greyish wax was hard, translucent, smelled sourish-sweet. It softened slowly.

The vampyre's shout rang out so close and clear this time that Aeriel jumped. She could tell by the sound of it that he was on the near side of the bank.

"He's returned," she said, shaken. She had not expected him back so soon.

The duarough nodded. "He is afraid to go very far into the caves."

Aeriel looked at him, startled. "Afraid? But he is so strong and sure. I did not think he could be afraid of anything."

The duarough shook his head and worked the wax. "Oh, he is a great coward. He is afraid of the dark and of his own dreams. He only comes down here now and again to search for..."

"Afraid of the dark?" said Aeriel. "But..."

The duarough laughed. "Yes, yes. I know. He is a creature of darkness, but the witch has not yet taught him to love the dark. Ah, but when she takes his dreams from him, he'll no longer fear it. It will be the light, then, that he'll shun."

"The witch?" said Aeriel. "You mean the water witch, his mother?"

The duarough snorted, but said nothing more for a minute. Aeriel looked at him curiously. "She is not his mother," he said at last.

"What do you mean?" said Aeriel.

"The lorelei are barren," the duarough said, "as are their 'sons,' the icari. They have forsaken life—no life can spring from them. What children they call theirs they must steal at an early age___"

The vampyre began to call again. He was some way up the bank by this time, possibly even into the next chamber. Sitting up as she was, with her ears uncovered, Aeriel could hear him perfectly.

"Where are you?" he cried, and the dull echoes repeated the cry. "Answer me!"

His voice sounded ugly to her—angry and on edge. Aeriel shuddered and tried not to listen. She watched the duarough, the fire, glanced around the great, bare room—

anything to keep from hearing him. His voice became suddenly smooth, almost sweet.

"Come out," he called, "and I promise not to be angry. You haven't really displeased me, but I must talk to you. Won't you come out?"

His words rang true, sincere. Hearing them, Aeriel could almost believe.

"You know I'm very fond of you," the vam-pyre said; his voice sounded so pleasant now.

"You've nothing to fear from me. Come out."

Aeriel had risen to her feet without realizing it. She had always obeyed him. The compulsion was strong to do so now.

"I won't hurt you," the icarus said.

"He's lying," said the duarough. "He'll kill you."

"Listen to me," the darkangel called; "you shouldn't stay down here in these twisting caves; you'll lose your way. Come out now, or I shall be angry."

The duarough held her eyes with his and would not let them go. Aeriel backed away from him toward the door.

"All I want," cried the icarus, "is for you to promise not to tell me any more of those tales. Then we can be friends again. Agreed? Why won't you answer me?"

The duarough stood up. Aeriel moved for the door. "Daughter," he said, "don't go to him."

"I can't help it," cried Aeriel softly. "I know he is lying, but I cannot disobey him."