SOLSTAR SLID GRADUALLY ACROSS THE sky. Aeriel felt no weariness, no hunger still, nor did the little dustshrimp hidden away among hei garment's folds seem to require any food. She met no one. From time to time she spoke to the figurehead upon her staff, but the heron never awoke.
The land began to fall at last. The cliffs no longer rose so high above the shore. Solstar hung due east, directly beside her. She saw the city of Talis in the distance before. It stood upon a rocky arm of land jutting out into the Sea. A steady trickle of travelers approached from the north and west.
Aeriel lifted the hood of her traveling cloak. The wind off the Sea had begun to rise. No one paid her the slightest attention as she joined the others passing between the high double gates - not the women in long tunics that fell to their shoes, nor the men in trousers and sarks. Their skin was pale, dusky blue. Aeriel had never before seen Bernean skin.
The city was smaller than Isternes, had none of the graceful arches and spires of the east.
The buildings of Talis were all squat and square, half-timbered of silvery wood and grey pearly sea-stone. Aeriel found herself passing through market streets and jewelers' streets.
Perfumers brewed strange-scented stuff; knifemakers offered hilts set with carbuncles and pearls.
Once, in broad sunlight, Aeriel saw a jeweler draw from his sleeve a tiny glass vessel half-filled with blue fluid. Pure corundum, he whispered, offering it to the man widi whom he bargained: the blood of the Sea. One sup, he said, would keep one young for a dozen years, and he was willing to part with it for only a thousand times its silverweight.
He twirled the vial then, its contents gleaming, swirling like water - but leaning closer, Aeriel saw that it was dust, and very like the stuff she had scooped from the Sea, diough not so dark a blue. Neidier the merchant nor his buyer even glanced at her, though moments earlier, the seller had chased two ragged boys away. Aeriel moved on.
She crossed a square and found herself before a tavern. A high wall enclosed its yard, and two tall doorkeepers stood on the threshold of the sup-perhall, turning would-be guests and curious onlookers away.
Aeriel approached, expecting to be told the same, but neither so much as looked at her, and she passed between them without trouble. Shrugging, puzzled, she supposed a mere player who would sing for her supper and sleep on the hearth must be beneath their notice.
The hall was large, people and tables crowding the room. The last of the dusk light streamed through the windows. A great hearth took up half the far wall. Aeriel had never before seen so much wood burned at once. In Terrain, where wood was scarce, they burned oil in lamps, but here great boughs and branches blazed, not the white or yellow flame of oil, but red.
Only two others sat upon the hearth, one a solidly built young man with fair hair and pale green skin. His companion was a girl, younger than Aeriel, lank and straight-limbed still.
A circlet of twisted cloth kept her cinnamon hair from her eyes. Her skin was Bernean blue.
Aeriel knelt upon the hearth, stood her staff in one corner and threw back her hood. The blue-skinned girl, who had been gazing absently in her direction, started suddenly, staring at Aeriel. Aeriel glanced at her.
"Is anything amiss?" she asked. She unfastened her cloak and laid it down, began unwrapping her bandolyn.
The girl stared a moment more, then shook her head and seemed to recover herself. "How long have you been there? I didn't see you."
Aeriel smiled. "Only a moment. I am Aeriel." She sat, starting to tune her bandolyn.
The girl's expression abruptly brightened. "A storier? I think you must be the only storier in all Talis tonight. No wonder the doorkeeps let you in. How much did they ask?"
Aeriel looked up. "Nothing. They paid me no attention at all."
"They let you in for nothing?" the girl exclaimed, on her feet then, fists on hips, glaring sourly at the door. "We had to buy our way in."
She glanced at her companion, but the young man, though he watched both her and Aeriel closely, said nothing. In time Aeriel began to wonder if he had a tongue. The blue-skinned girl shrugged, sat down again.
"Well, no matter. We should make it back in threes tonight."
She leaned back against her companion, stretched. A server passed beside the hearth.
Almost quicker than Aeriel's eye could follow, the girl had snatched six olives from his tray. The boy moved on without a glance.
Then the girl was tossing the fruits in a circle before her. The pattern became a figure eight. Just as suddenly, she had turned to her companion and the two were tossing the dark fruit between them, in intricate loops.
Abruptly, Aeriel realized the girl had passed every one to her young man, who juggled one group single-handed in a circle, while making a figure eight between his already occupied hand and the free.
Aeriel stared. She had never seen such a thing. The girl sprang up, did two handsprings upon the hearth before flipping back to her feet with a gesture first to herself, then to her companion.
"Nat and Galnor, traveling players. Feats to dazzle and delight."
Her companion caught all six olives then, seemingly at once. He tossed three to Nat, who offered Aeriel one. Aeriel accepted gratefully, bit into the dark, salty flesh. Her hunger and thirst were beginning to return. She laid her bandolyn upon the floor and glanced about to see when supper might be served.
Outside, the light of setting Sol-star was growing very dim. Aeriel felt the evening chill even so near the fire. Servers began to close and bar the shutters. Torches were lit, the outer door drawn shut. Guests at table began demanding the meal.
It was brought almost at once, huge platters of brittle meal cakes and animal's flesh, baskets of violet plums. Nothing was given the players on the hearth, and now with only the taste of a single olive on her tongue, Aeriel found her mouth watering, her limbs feeling weak with hunger.
"Well," murmured Nat, after a little. "I see they mean to leave us to ourselves." She glanced at Aeriel with half a smile. "Agile fingers are good at more than juggling."
Then she rose and glided away between the tables, juggling empty mugs and plates at first for a bit of food or a sip of ale. After a while, their own hunger eased, some guests began tossing her more substantial tidbits, which she pocketed, returning to the hearth at last, well laden.
Aeriel ate gladly: new apples and fried cakes and wings of forest lizards. She fed the little dustshrimp crumbs as well, and once Galnor snatched full mugs from a passing tray so deftly the server never missed them.
As Aeriel lifted the sweet, foaming honeybeer to her lips, a strange, savage cry rose from outside the inn. Choking, she set down the mug. The talk of the supper hall became suddenly much quieter. Some had turned their eyes to the door opening on the tavern's courtyard. It stood ajar.
The cry continued. Aeriel felt her skin grow taut, a shiver take her as she listened. Then the eerie keening died away, and guests turned back to their meals and their companions at table. The hubbub gradually resumed. Aeriel glanced at the girl beside her.
"What was that?"
Nat glanced up, licking her fingers of grease. She shrugged. "Only the Beast. It has been howling like that, every now and again, since they brought it in."
"What beast is that?" said Aeriel.
The girl looked up in earnest now. "Do you not know? The Beast that has been putting the whole countryside in terror these last day-months."
Aeriel shook her head. "What has it done?"
"They say," said Nat, "it has never done anything to any honest traveler, save stare at them and wail - though it has put thieves to flight, and more than one has felt its teeth."
The girl leaned closer.
"Merchant folk have begun to stay away for fear of meeting it, and travelers have been afraid to move along the roads, even by day, save in large, well-armed caravans - which has spoilt the thieves' trade famously. So at dawn this day-month, the Arlish bandits set out in search of it, and they have captured it, for they brought it back to the city in a wooden cage only hours ago." She nodded. "It is they who sit there."
Aeriel followed the line of her gaze and spotted a band of roughly dressed women and men at one central table-^-she had taken little note of them before. Most of them wore gold in the lobes of their ears, and their captain a silver band high upon his one bare arm.
All had dirks. They were eating off the finest plate in the house.
Nat was saying, "They have set their caged Beast in the courtyard, and all the other guests are here in hopes of glimpsing it."
Again the eerie wailing rose. Again the talk grew quieter.
"What will they do with it?" asked Aeriel. The timbre of that unearthly cry set her teeth on edge.
Nat shrugged. "Sell it, I suppose. For a ruler's ransom. Sabr, the bandit queen, keeps a stable of strange beasts in the north - horses, I think they call them. Perhaps she will buy."
She began to say more, but the guests, well satisfied of food and drink, had begun demanding entertainments. Nat and Galnor rose from the hearth, tumbling and juggling: circles and arcs, then intricate patterns Aeriel could not name.
The watchers threw fruits and cakes to them at first, then spoons and cutlery. Finally, coins - which seemed to vanish unexpectedly whenever Nat juggled. The guests only laughed and tossed her more.
But at length it was Aeriel's turn. Galnor and Nat retired to the hearth. Aeriel lifted her ban-dolyn. She had meant to tell them some tale she had learned in Isternes, of Syllva, perhaps, and her chieftain Imrahil, but the guests - above the keening from without -
roared for a tale of fantastical beasts.
So she told them the tale of the darkangel.
Sometimes singing and sometimes speaking, Aeriel spoke of a Terrainean girl who followed her mistress to the darkangel's keep, of the vampyre's withered brides, the wraiths, and of the weird gargoyles that were his watchdogs.
The quiet of the hall deepened, the click of cups, the murmur died, the eerie yips from the courtyard ceased. Aeriel had not reached the tale's end, had come only so far as the girl's return from the desert with the horse-hoof cup, her freeing of the gargoyles from their silver chains -
A great commotion from the courtyard suddenly. Shouts, then the sound of splintering wood: cries and running footfalls. Aeriel broke off in midsentence. Two bandits burst through the courtyard door.
"Master," one of them cried, "the Beast is loose. It seemed quiet - we forgot to watch; we were intent upon the tale. It must have gnawed through the bars..."
The woman broke off with a shriek. Behind the pair, the door gaped wide. No one had thought to shut or bar it. Guests nearby it scattered as a great haggard beast slunk into the room.
It snarled, doglike, and snapped. It was all over one even shade of grey: even its eyes and teeth and tongue were grey. Its shabby, matted fur stood on end. A collar of yellow metal encircled its throat.
Aeriel gazed upon it from the hearth. She felt her heart contract. Beside her, Nat shrank against Galnor. Just then the Beast caught sight of Aeriel, its grey eyes wild and wide. It padded toward her.
Those in its path shrank away from it. Some held daggers, but none dared strike. Aeriel half rose, put her bandolyn from her. She could see the creature's skeletal ribs, ridges of spine along its back. Her knees gave way.
"Greyling," she whispered. "Greyling - first gargoyle ever I tamed. What has become of you? You are all bone beneath the skin."
For a moment, the gargoyle stared at her, lips pulled back from its broken teeth, tongue loose and lolling. It panted hoarsely. Its tattered ears lay flat against the skull. Aeriel held out her arms to it.
"I did not set you free that you should come to this."
The Beast bellied down before her on the floor. It crept forward, a strange whine gibbering from its throat. Its curved claws scattered the rushes, scathed the floorboards underfoot. The creature reached her knees. Aeriel bent to stroke it as the grey Beast laid its huge and grisly head upon her lap.
There was not a sound in the room but the soft, harsh breathing of the lookers-on and the fizzing crackle of the fire.
"A sorceress!" someone whispered then. "The storier's a witch. See how she has charmed the Beast."
Aeriel did not look up, was aware of the inn guests shifting uneasily, of Nat staring from Galnor's arms. The bandits of Arl gazed upon her in outright rage. Aeriel stroked the gargoyle's heavy, strange head, fingered its matted, thin fur.
"What has become of you?" she murmured again. "You do not look as though you have tasted food since you left me. Eat this." She reached into her pack.
"More sorceries," a woman cried. "What's that in her hand?"
"A jewel."
"A dagger - "
"It's just a plum," murmured Nat, coming away from Galnor a little.
Aeriel dusted the fine fuzz from the apricok, held it out. The gargoyle ate eagerly, almost desperately, strained to swallow against the collar about its throat. Its grey tongue slavered, catching the runnels of blood-colored juice. When she held only the clean stone in her hand, the gargoyle set its lips to it, gnawing at it, but Aeriel drew it gently away.
"Not the seed," she told it. "I have promised to save the seeds."
She put the stone away in Hadin's robe, stroked the head of the grey beast again and again, for it yipped and trembled still.
"Witchery," she heard someone muttering. Another voice, across the room, half shouted,
"She will charm us all."
Aeriel looked up then, saw people fall back as she raised her eyes. The hard faces of the Arlish bandits made her skin creep. The gargoyle stared at them, lip twitching into a snarl.
"Come, Greyling," she murmured. "I do not like our company. Let's begone."
She laid her bandolyn upon the yellow silk, knotted it deftly and reached for her staff.
The gargoyle bounded away from her, gibbering. Aeriel faced about, glimpsed one of the robber band, under her captain's eye, creeping forward, her saber drawn. The gargoyle shrieked and lunged. The woman dropped her blade and scrambled back.
"A demon, a familiar!" someone was screaming.
Aeriel half turned, confused. Then she spotted the dustshrimp standing upon her shoulder, waving its tiny claws. Aeriel thrust it back into the folds of her shift, shrugged into her traveling cloak, and slung her bandolyn.
"And what of those two?" a man's voice demanded. "They were with her. They did their feats by conjuring."
Galnor and Nat stood a half step behind Aeriel. She saw the blue-skinned girl produce a dirk from nowhere. Galnor caught up a stout limb from beside the hearth.
"Take her staff," the master of the robbers shouted. "Without it, a wizard has no power."
One of the robbers darted forward and snatched the long staff leaning against the wall.
The boy was away before Aeriel could stop him - but as his hand closed roughly upon the wood, the heron awoke with a startled cry. Beating her wings, she shouted, "Unhand me!"
The youth flung the staff from him with a cry. Aeriel caught it and laid her hand upon the gargoyle's collar. She approached the captain of the thieves.
"Why do you set your people against me?" she demanded. Galnor and Nat had come behind her. "I have done you no injury."
The bandit lord eyed her uneasily, tugging one tail of his mustache.
"You have stolen my Beast," he answered at last, "you with your singing and your sorceries."
"Your prisoner," said Aeriel. "I am no sorceress."
"That Beast is worth a queen's ransom," the bandit snapped.
"Will you have ransom?" Aeriel said. Anger welled in her for the first time then. She reached into the sleeve of Hadin's robe, drew out a handful of deep blue dust. "I own little the thieves of Talis would value, but perhaps you will find this worth your trouble."
She held her cupped hand over the table toward him.
"Don't touch it, lord," one of his people said. "It's witched."
But the bandit captain's eyes were fixed on Aeriel's hand. "Ah, but witches may give marvelous gifts," he murmured. "May they not?"
He drew his dirk. The gargoyle snarled, but the bandit lord, with the dull edge of his blade, only tipped Aeriel's hand so that the dust fell in a blue stream to the tabletop, spilled among the plates, sifted between threads of the table's cloth, and spattered like water through loose planks to the floor.
"True corundum," the robber captain murmured. "The blood of the Sea."
He scooped what remained on the table into an empty dish. One of his people dashed the drink from a cup, caught the stream of blue dribbling from the table's edge. Another crawled upon the floorboards, sweeping up what fell.
Aeriel had not yet taken back her hand. "Is it enough?"
"Enough?" the bandit captain laughed. "It is a fortune, five fortunes - and half again as much lost already through the cracks."
"It's wizard's dust," the woman who had lost her saber cried. "A dream. It will be water in the morning, or sand."
But the lord of the bandits was already pouring the blue from the dish into the wine flask on his belt. "We'll sell it for silver before the night is up," he hissed. "What's it to me if it's ashes by morning? Go, witch. Take your Beast with you." He put his dirk back in the sheath. "It is enough."
Aeriel turned toward the door. People parted to let her through, but with scarcely a glance now. All eyes had fixed upon the bloodblue dust, which the robbers still struggled to collect, their daggers now turned outward, toward the crowd.
Aeriel, reaching the tavern door, was aware of Nat and Galnor just behind. But as she made to pass through, a strong-built woman with the keyring of an innkeeper stepped suddenly in front of her.
"Here now," she said shortly. "You got in here by some devilry. Neither of my doorkeeps let you in."
"They passed me through without a word," Aeriel replied.
"None pass my door without paying the fare - and even so, you've been fed since then."
"I sang for my supper," said Aeriel.
The innkeeper pursed her lips, folding her ample arms. She eyed Aeriel's gargoyle and her staff warily, but held her ground.
"And what of the ruckus you've caused? Damage to my establishment's reputation - and no doubt a good deal of my plate's disappeared...."
Aeriel felt her lips twitching into a smile. "Peace, dame," she said, "you are a thief among innkeepers, but I will give you the only other thing I have for your trouble."
She took from her pack the great waxy green lump she had found upon the Sea. The innkeeper's eyes widened.
"Ambergris," she whispered. "That's the balm that heals all sores - it's worth its goldenweight." She reached for it, then checked herself. "A physician would call it worth more than corundum."
Her fingers darted out at last, broke a small bit off.
"I'll only take so much," she said, "for I am not so great a thief as that."
But she caught Aeriel's sleeve as she made to pass.
"Go quickly out of the city, do you hear? The captain of the Arlish thieves - what's to stop him coming after you the moment he thinks of it, and having both the seablood and the Beast?"
Aeriel glanced back, but before she could speak, the woman gave a swift shake of her head, dropping her voice very low.
"You have a strange companion, mistress, and a strange staff, and strange goods in your pack, but I have seen sorcerers in my day, and you are no sorceress."
Aeriel laughed a little then, softly. She stowed the rest of the ambergris. Nat and Galnor moved over the threshold past her. Aeriel kept her eyes on the innkeeper still.
"I thank you your advice, madam," she told her. "I'll follow it."
Her companions now waited in the darkness beyond the door. Taking the gargoyle by its brass collar, Aeriel went to join them, ducking out into the night.
