The Darkangel (2 page)

"Good, then," cried Eoduin, softly, as from a great distance. "Stay here, in sight—don't wander. And
don't spill any."

Aeriel nodded. Eoduin slung her basket over one shoulder and went on up the last, steepest twenty paces to the top. Aeriel watched her easy, surefooted ascent, her mistress's free hand resting lightly on rock or boulder from time to time to help her balance. Aeriel wished that she could have been born so long-limbed, so self-sure—so beautiful. She set her basket down and knelt beside the hornscrub, began gathering the flowers.

These hornflowers grew on a tiny, grey-silver bush which lived only on the highest steeps where the air was rare and perilously thin, not the slightest breeze ever stirring to disturb them. Each branch of the bush was covered with tiny, trumpet-shaped flowers: yellowish white, translucent as frost. Each trump was filled with a tiny drop of pale golden liquor, sweeter than ginger and richer than rum.

Aeriel pulled one blossom ever so gently from its twig. The trick was to gather them one by one, painstakingly, so that not a drop was spilled in either the picking or the pouring from flower to wineskin. The task was made doubly difficult by the flocks of tiny hummingswifts, no bigger than fireflies, that swarmed about the flowers and lip of the wineskin and could, between three or four of them, drink a horn dry before Aeriel could get the flower from bush to bottle. She shooed at them with one hand while keeping the other, holding the flower, perfectly steady.

Aeriel dropped the first, emptied trump into the mesh basket beside her and reached slowly for another bloom, and then another, and another. The motions became mechanical. Her back began to ache, and her legs felt stiff, but Aeriel ignored the pains, waved away the bothersome bee-birds and continued gathering.

A marriage was to take place in the village at sundown, dusk being the customary and proper time for weddings in Avaric. Eoduin, as eldest cousin to the bride, was pledged to bring the bridal cup of hornbloom nectar and garlands of the weddings trumps. But these could be harvested only a few hours before the marriage, the precious liquor and delicate blossoms so quickly spoiled.

It seemed to Aeriel as she poured the contents of another pale, trumpet-shaped flower into the goat-hide bottle, that the humming of the tiny swifts had grown rather louder, and shrill. She tossed the empty flower into the basket and ignored the sound to concentrate on carefully plucking another blossom. She imagined the preparations in the village: the decking of the streets with banners of white gauze, the bathing of the bride...

It occurred to Aeriel, then, that the sound she was hearing was not the angry whine of hum-mingswifts, but something else: a voice. Eoduin is calling me, she thought, as she pulled a flower away from the stalk. The pitch of the voice changed abruptly, intensified.

Aeriel brought the hombloom to the rim of the bottle. No, not calling anymore, she realized suddenly—screaming.

Aeriel dropped the flower, felt its droplet spill hot as a tear—no, hotter: hot as tallow; it burned her hand. She looked up the slope to where Eoduin was. The basket of wedding trumps lay overturned at Eoduin's feet. Her young mistress was standing mute now, looking up at the sky.

Then Aeriel saw wings, very near—great wings descending: a creature with more wings than she could count, all black, all beating fiercely. She felt a faint breeze against her cheek—for all the fury of those terrible wings, the air was too thin to carry more than a feeble gust.

They were jet, those wings, as deep as the sky, as black as Eoduin's hair—no, blacker, for they were dull, unoiled. They gave off no sheen in the light, no gleam to the eye. They drank up the light and diminished it: they were wings of pure shadow.

It seemed to Aeriel, as she watched that storm of darkness descend, that she discerned the figure of a man at its heart, a man dressed in some pale garment, a man of fair complexion—but the wings beat with such rapidity against the near-empty air that she could not make out his face.

The figure reached the mountaintop and alighted, but barely—his sandaled feet hardly touched the stone. Before him, Eoduin cried out in terror. Though Aeriel knelt not twenty paces from her, the sound was distant, as though it had traveled miles. He held out his arms to Eoduin, abruptly, as in command. Eoduin backed away. The darkangel stepped toward her. Aeriel could see only the vague white shimmer of his garment amid the dark fury of still-beating wings.

Eoduin whirled and began to run, down the slope toward Aeriel. She had not taken two steps before the vampyre had swooped and caught her. Aeriel heard Eoduin's piercing cry. The icarus' speed and Eoduin's weight bore them forward and down. His powerful wings thrashed the air. Aeriel bolted to her feet—too fast. Her legs, still from long sitting, would not bear her. The vampyre swooped overhead, so close Aeriel could have reached to touch him.

The world had reeled, and falling, she threw up her arms then, not to touch, but to ward off the cold, fleeting shade of those horrible wings. Her knees buckled. She felt her feet skid from under her. The darkangel was gaining altitude above her. She saw Eoduin still struggling in his arms, but could no longer hear her screams.

Aeriel felt her elbow strike the earth, and then her shoulder, as a dozen sharp, hard, rolling pebbles dug into her flesh. The ground was in motion beneath her, slipping, sliding. The icarus was already far away, a dark blot against the stars. She glimpsed the shadow of his dozen wings very small against Oceanus.

"Eoduin! Eoduin!" she started to cry; then her head struck ground with a sickening jolt.

The back of her skull went numb. All the sky was white stars for a moment. Her scalp felt wet and warm. Then suddenly the brightness dimmed. "Eoduin," she heard herself breathe, barely, once, just before all the light in the world went out.

Aeriel licked her lips and burned her tongue on the sweetness of horn liquor. She was lying on hard, sloping ground. Jagged pebbles pressed into her back like great pus-pox, hurting her. She could feel the goatskin bottle on her chest and the warmth on her cheek and throat where it had splashed out, spilling. She was lying on the slope, her head lowest, her feet uphill from her: her toes were numb. All this she knew without opening her eyes.

She opened them slowly, saw the star-littered sky above through the slight glare of sun in her eyes. She tried to move and found it hard, very hard. Her head came away sticky from the ground with a soreness that made her feel sick and stupid. She got one elbow under her and propped herself up, gazed straight at Oceanus, a huge and constant blue with no shadow of wings across it now.

She said, "Eoduin," and wept, but she was too weak to weep much.

Her hand was cold. All her body was warm in the sun, but her left hand was cold: she looked at it presently and saw that the shadow of a boulder down the slope had crept across it. That frightened her. She snatched it from the shadow and sat up, twisted around—too quickly. Her temples pounded; she felt the blood running out of her head, and blotches of darkness wandered across the stars.

Solstar was setting. She could see it as her vision cleared. It was barely three degrees above the horizon—and that would diminish as she descended the mountain. She twisted her head around the other way. The pain increased sharply at the sudden move. She could already see the shade of night across the desert to the west. She had two hours, maybe less, to get back to the village by nightfall. With the wedding procession about to begin, who would miss one little slave?

She chafed the leaden, cold-bitten hand in her lap and felt nothing. It was numb. She groped for the flask at her neck: yes, there was a little of the liquor left. She poured the bright liquid out onto her limp, waxy hand, then grimaced, rocked in pain as the heat soaked through the frostbite, burned to the bone and then to the marrow. As the heat diminished and was gone, color returned to her hand; she could move it.

She got to her knees and then to her feet, took a step, stumbled and fell. She got up again and started down the slope. The soreness in her head was mostly dull, but when she missed her footing and staggered, the pain stabbed. She clung to the rocks of the mountainside, to the scrubweed, to the crannies. She raked her arm on bell-thorn and scraped her knuckles raw when she slipped. Twice the winding trail crumbled beneath her feet and fell away down the mountainside like a tiny meteor shower. And always the sun sank lower as she descended the steep, and the shadows lengthened. The air grew warmer and thicker: her breathing eased.

Solstar had halfway sunk into the Sea-of-Dust by the time she heard the marriage hymns drifting up into the foothills on the soft plains wind. Strange. It seemed strange after the airless, muted steeps that here below, still a quarter-mile from the village, she could hear the singing so distinctly so far away. She listened to the words floating in the long, harsh twilight.

Farra atwei, farra atwei. Narett, miri umni hardue
__.

Here in the foothills, just coming into the village, the path was much broader, smoother, less steep. She had come this way a dozen times: up to the spring to catch minnows, up to play in the caves and gather mushrooms, and just six hours past up into the mountains with Eoduin.

Aeriel grimaced with the pain of remembering. Eoduin had once pulled her out of one of those dark pools when she had slipped, pulled her out by the hair and pounded her on the back as they knelt, wet and shuddering, on the slick, steep bank until Aeriel had coughed up half a measure of bitter water and no more would come. That had been two years ago.

Aeriel's head hurt, now, as she fled down the broad, smooth path by the caves toward the village. She did not want to think of Eoduin. She thought of the music instead.

Tkyros idil temkin terral, Ma'amombi tembrilferral....

The words were closer now, a little louder. She realized that she was in the village. The smooth, square, whitewashed adobe houses gleamed in the dying light of Solstar.

Gathered gauze draped softly from their dark windows. The great street that ran east-west was a long corridor of light. The little north-south side streets were dark as death.

Anntuin dantuwyn tevangel hemb, Letsichel mirmichel gamberg an rend....

She was passing the houses more quickly now: she could see the village square ahead, filled with people. Then suddenly she was among the people, who did not seem to notice her but went on with the singing,, their eyes turned toward the half-gone sun. Pushing past them, she gave a cry to make them stop.

The hymn broke off raggedly in midverse. The syndic frowned from his place before the bride and groom. The bride in her new-woven sari glanced around. Behind her and the syndic, Aeriel saw Eoduin's mother, a thin-faced aristocrat with hair like night. Old Bomba swayed beside her, nodding off into sleep even as she stood. Aeriel stared at Bomba and the mother.

"Eoduin," she gasped, breathless.

The syndic, Eoduin's father, had been standing in shadow, came forward now into the glare. "Yes," he said, "where is she? The ceremony cannot be completed without the bridal cup." He eyed the flask still hanging from Aeriel's neck. "Has she sent you ahead with it?"

"She," said Aeriel. She could not catch her breath. "No, she..."

"Well, where is she, then?" demanded the syndic, pursing his fine lips. He gave an exasperated sigh. "How that girl can dawdle!" Turning back to Aeriel, his patience thinned. "Come, out with it, drudge, or I'll have you beaten."

"Gone!" cried Aeriel, marveling that even yet he did not understand. "The icarus," she faltered, "the one with wings..."

The syndic shook his head impatiently. "Are you gaming with me, drudge? Now where's my daughter, your mistress; where's Eoduin?"

Aeriel gazed at him and longed to faint. The syndic glared at her and would not listen.

The townspeople all stood hushed now, staring. Her head felt light, ached; she felt her balance tip. She swayed and staggered. The syndic eyed her with sudden suspicion.

"Have you been tasting of those hornflowers, girl?"

Aeriel looked back at him with dull surprise. "I hit my head," she muttered, putting her hand to the sticky place behind and above her ear.

She felt something at once soft and stiff amid her tangled hair. She pulled it free from the mat of blood. It was a feather, black, a cubit long. It had been in her hair the whole time she had been coming down the mountain, and she had not known. Realization struck her with the coldness of shadow across strong light.

She shuddered once, staring at the thing. Her hand snapped open but the feather did not fall, stuck to the half-dried ooze on her palm. She shook her hand and still it clung, black and blood-damp; she could not bear to touch it or pull it free with her other hand.

The last ray of Solstar winked out, like a candle snuffed. The square was smothered in shadow. All was night. Aeriel could still see the vampyre's feather dimly, a black streak in the dark against the paleness of her flesh. No one moved toward her. No one stirred to help her. She gave a long, low cry of revulsion and despair, and swooned.

"Who will kill the vampyre?" said Aeriel softly, softly. The vehemence of her own words surprised her. She was kneeling beside the wide, low windows of the deserted alcove just off the empty dyeing chamber. Night outside was dark and still. Her mouth tasted like metal. She had not known she could feel such bitterness.

She remembered waking hours, many hours after the sun had set, and seeing old Bomba along with some others of the servant women murmuring over her or moving quietly about the darkened chamber. Bomba had laid a cool, damp gauzecloth on her forehead.

Time passed. And then, she remembered Eoduin's mother, the syndic's wife, shoving suddenly into the room, the women falling back deferentially, uncertainly before their mistress, who came to stand over Aeriel, white-faced and screaming: "So she is awake, now, is she—why wasn't I told? My daughter is dead because of you, worthless chattel!"