Aeriel lay on a low, flat couch in the outer chamber of the apartments the Lady had given them. Save for herself, the suite stood empty. She had sent the attendants all away, bade one beg the Lady to excuse her from supping.
The room was dark, completely still, no lampwicks burning in other chambers. Starlight through the windows lit dim squares upon the floor. Aeriel traced the smooth, uneven pattern in the wood of the couch's side. It was wet. Her cheeks were wet. Aeriel sat up, sighing. She blinked, momentarily giddy from having lain so long.
"This is witless," she told herself. "I am worn out with weeping. I should sleep."
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the cool stone of the wall. She felt herself growing very still, and something, some thread, spinning out of her into the night.
The light around her began to change. She perceived, without turning, night sky over Isternes. Low over the west, the ring of yellow stars formed like a crown, or maidens dancing, began to shift and lose its shape. Thirteen pricks of yellow light drifted toward her over the Sea-of-Dust.
Silently, like fireflies they came, and entered the room through the broad windows on either side of her. Golden flickers, each no bigger than a hand, they alighted upon the dark floor in a circle with Aeriel at the head.
Then like someone turning up the wicks of thirteen lamps at once, the little fires expanded, growing brighter, until they stood narrow and tall as women. Aeriel felt a warmth, almost a pressure upon her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she beheld thirteen maidens of golden light.
Only three daymonths ago they had been the wraiths, the vampyre's stolen brides. Aeriel had rescued them, spun thread for their garments on a spindle that drew from the spinner's own heart. Then she had stood with the wraiths in the dark-angel's tower, watching their withered bodies crumble, their freed souls ascend. Upon her right stood the first she had saved, the one called Marrea, and upon her left, the icarus' last bride before Aeriel.
"Eoduin," said Aeriel.
The lightmaiden smiled. "Yes, companion."
"You have come back to me."
"For a little," another said. "We followed the thread you spun for us."
She gave a twitch on something Aeriel could not see, though she felt a strange, subtle tugging against her heart. "I spun no thread."
"Who has once mastered that golden spindle," Marrea said, "never loses the knack."
Aeriel shook her head, not understanding. "I have been so alone. Why have you not come to me before?"
Eoduin knelt. "We may come only along the path you make, and until this hour, your heart has spun no strand long enough to find us, or strong enough to hold."
The maiden standing beside her sighed, fiddling with something between her fingers.
"Despair's a heavy strand, though very strong."
"Next time you must spin joy, Aeriel," another maiden said.
"Yes, joy."
"There's a thread."
Aeriel put both hands against her breast, against the ache. Her heart felt bruised.
"Leave off," said Marrea suddenly, sternly. The maidens abruptly ceased their riddling, eyed one another with guilty glances.
"Why have you come?" said Aeriel.
Beside her, Marrea knelt as Eoduin had done. "Deep heaven is a rare place. We like it very well. All there is light and unencumbering, and we may dance together as much as we choose."
"But we saw you were unhappy," another said.
"Here in a strange country."
"With your chieftain's son."
"We never liked him."
Aeriel sat up then, let her hands fall from her breast. "He is not the same creature who stole you away. He is no more the darkangel."
"That is true," one maiden said.
"But still the White Witch whispers to him."
"In dreams."
"Dreams," breathed Aeriel. "Do you know his dreams?"
"He dreams," said Eoduin, laying her hands on Aeriel's knees, "of a long, narrow hall, all of the cold crystal stone that makes the witch's house."
"The witch sits before him at the far end of the hall," another maiden said, "upon a siege as white as salt."
"She holds in hand a fine silver chain that binds the young man's wrist. 'Come back to me, my love, my own sweet son,' she calls."
"Then she begins to gather in the chain."
Aeriel flinched. "He would not tell me. He has never told me what he dreamed."
None of the maidens spoke.
"Does he go to her?" breathed Aeriel. "What happens in the dream?"
"We do not know," one maiden said.
"He does not know."
"He cannot know, Aeriel."
"Until."
" 'Until,' " said Aeriel. " 'Until'?"
"Until he finishes the dream," Eoduin replied. "Until you let him."
"Each time he dreams, he wakens - or you waken him."
"You must leave him to his dreams," said Marrea.
Another echoed, "You must leave him."
Aeriel turned her head, dropped her gaze, tried to look away, but the maidens surrounded her.
They burned silently, like pale golden fire, watching her.
"I know it," said Aeriel. "I know."
She said nothing then. The maidens did not speak. At length she said, "Where will I go?"
"Across the Sea-of-Dust," said Eoduin. "A task awaits you there."
"A task?" Aeriel shook her head. "My part in this is done. The rest is Irrylath's."
The maidens shook their heads. All of them were kneeling now.
"You are wrong, love," said Eoduin. Her fingers of golden light still rested on Aeriel's knees. "Tell us again the rime you learned for the undoing of the darkangel."
Aeriel looked at her and thought back. She remembered the duarough, who had taught her the rime. A little man only half her height, with his stone grey eyes and long, twined beard... Aeriel turned her head away from Eoduin. The words of the duarough's rime came slowly to her, but she knew them too well to forget.
"On Avaric's white plain, where the icarus now wings To steeps of Terrain from tour-of-the-kings, And damo^els twice-seven his brides have all become:
Afar cry from heaven
and a long road from home -
Then strong-hoof of the 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."
She paused a moment, drawing breath.
"I broke the spell upon the darkangel using a cup made of the starhorse's hoof," Aeriel said dully, "and hallowed his heart, as I had never guessed to do, by making it mortal again. Irrylath will be the Warrior, and Avarclon the Warhorse that the wise ones are working to restore."
"Listen to this, then," said Marrea. "What does this mean to you?
"But first there must assemble
those the icari would claim, A bride in the temple
must enter the flame,
Steeds found for the secondbom beyond
the dust deepsea, And new arrows reckoned, a wand
given wings -
So that when a princess royal
shall have tasted of the tree,
Then far fiom Esternesse's
city, these things:
A gathering of gargoyles,
a feasting on the stone, The witch of Westemesse 's
hag overthrown."
Aeriel shook her head. "Nothing. It means nothing to me. I have not heard it before." She frowned a little. "It has the same cadence as the riddling rime - but it makes no sense."
"Nor did the first part, when first you heard it," said Eoduin.
"This is the rest," one of the maidens said.
"Part of the rest," her sister amended.
They had all somehow come closer to her, Aeriel realized. She could not recall their having moved. The spirits watched her with their flickering, golden eyes.
"But I thought only the Ions knew the riddle Ravenna sang over them at their making,"
Aeriel began, "and the duarough from the Book of the Dead."
"We can see very far from our vantage point above," Marrea replied, "half the world, and much of the sky."
"See into women's minds."
"And the hearts of men."
"Into locked boxes and closed rooms."
"Into prince's dreams."
"Or Ravenna's book."
Aeriel shook herself, but still the strange lethargy held her limbs. "This is a dream," she murmured. "That cannot be the rest of the rime."
"It is," said Eoduin, "and so the little mage would tell you, had you time to wait upon his coming...."
"But time is short."
"Already the witch has sent her watchers."
"Her searchers."
"Searchers," said Aeriel. "What do they seek?"
The maidens answered, "The Ions of those lands that the witch's sons now hold."
"Those Ions are dead," said Aeriel. "The icari killed them when they came to power."
"Not killed," the maidens answered urgently. "Not killed."
"Overthrown."
"Made powerless."
"So that her sons might rule and ravage."
"Pillage."
"Feast."
Aeriel shook her head. "How may they live? The witch would not spare them. She is merciless."
"Ah, merciless," one maiden said, "but cunning, too."
"Dead Ions are dangerous - they can be reborn."
"Someone must find the lost Ions, Aeriel," said Marrea. "Someone must gather them - "
"For they have slipped the witch's grasp."
"Her icari are already searching."
" 'But first there must assemble / those the icari would claim,' " murmured Aeriel. "Where are they?"
"Scattered," said one.
"In hiding."
"You should know that."
"Why should I know it?" Aeriel began.
But Eoduin was already reciting, " 'Beyond / the dust deepsea.' "
"The rime said 'steeds,' " started Aeriel.
"Hist," Marrea said suddenly, and Aeriel realized they all now spoke in whispers. The maidens glanced at one another. "What will your prince ride in a year's time," Marrea was asking, swifdy, "when he goes against the witch?"
Aeriel shook her head. None of it made any sense to her. "The Avarclon."
Eoduin nodded. "A Ion. The Ion of Avaric."
Said Marrea, "A single rider - against six icari?"
Aeriel felt the weight of weariness upon her limbs beginning to lift. "His brodiers," she murmured. "The Lady's secondborn sons have said they would join him, had they only the means...."
"Steeds," Eoduin finished. " 'Steeds found for the secondborn.'"
" 'And new arrows reckoned - ' " another began, but Aeriel hardly heard her. She was looking at Eoduin.
"You believe the lost Ions are the steeds the riddle speaks of?"
"Yes," the maidens cried, some of them rising.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"How may I find them?"
But the spirits before her all shook their heads, cast down their eyes. "That far we cannot see."
"But what does the rest of the riddle mean," said Aeriel, "the princess and the bride?"
"It is not necessary that you understand it all," replied one maiden.
"Only that you depart swiftly across the Sea-of-Dust."
"And find the Ions before the witch does."
The spirits all had risen now.
"Our time is short, our forms too light to hold long in this heavy place."
"Already the strand you spun for us gives way."
Aeriel put one hand to her breast and realized she hardly felt that light, insistent tugging anymore. Strange - her heart felt lighter than it had in daymonths.
"We may not bide," the maidens said.
Marrea smiled and touched her garment. "Though we have come for love of you."
Her sister beside her echoed, "For love of you."
Every maiden of the circle repeated those words, each touching her garment until at last Eoduin touched her own. "For love of you, sweet Aeriel."
And Aeriel saw they had begun both to dwindle and to rise. She watched them losing their maidens' forms, growing dimmer, less yellow and more white. They trailed away from her. Aeriel sprang up, followed them into the inner chamber: Irrylath's.
Surrounding his bed, the dozen-and-one lamp-stands stood, but they were all dark now, burned out. Some attendant had forgotten to fill them. Already some of the maidens had dwindled enough to light upon the spouts. The maiden on Aeriel's left began to flicker.
"Eoduin, wait," she cried, for a cold fear had begun to fill her. "The poem speaks of 'a feasting on the stone.' In Terrain - in the high temple in Orm - there is an altar they call the Feasting Stone."
"I remember," Eoduin said, half turning, pausing. "My father and I went there once to sacrifice when my mother was ill. You did not come, but I told you of it."
Said Aeriel, "You told me a veiled sibyl sat there."
The maiden nodded. "To answer riddles and interpret oracles."
Aeriel swallowed, for her throat was dry. Must she seek aid from the sibyl then - was that what the rime advised? But once in Terrain, her pale hair and the slight mauve cast to her skin would mark her to any slaver's eye: not freeborn. Fair game.
The memory of Orm's slave fairs rose in her mind: the hoots and jeers and bids from the buyers, shoves from the slavemaster, her fellows in chains. Aeriel shook her head. No, she must not think of it. She must go to Orm. The maidens had said the need was urgent.
"I will go to the sibyl," said Aeriel, "to ask her the meaning of the riddle, and where I may find the lost wardens."
"Take care, dear heart," said Eoduin. Already her outline had grown indistinct, her voice like wind. Her pale golden fingers brushed Aeriel's cheek.
"Don't go - not yet," Aeriel found herself whispering.
But Eoduin drew away, began to fade. Aeriel reached after her, touched nothing solid, felt only what seemed a steady, warm updraft where the figure stood. The other maidens had diminished to the size of tiny flames, alighted on the lamp-wicks. Eoduin's flame joined the others, grew very small. Then her form, too, vanished.
Aeriel gazed at the lights upon the wicks. They dwindled, grew bluish, and one by one winked out. The room grew darker, shade by shade, until at last the last was out, leaving only a breath of sweet smoke in the air, and Aeriel alone in the dark.
