Aeriel could not hear what they were saying, though now and again they glanced back at her.
The lyon and the woman parted. Aeriel watched him disappear over the dunes. The dark people came and stood about her. Then, lifting her carefully onto a litter, they quietly bore her away.
The people of the Ma'a-mbai were tall and dark. They had the darkest skin Aeriel had ever seen, a dusky rose hue the color of cinnamon. They wore loose, sleeveless smocks of pure white seedsilk and carried long, knobbed walking staves. They owned few possessions, spoke softly to each other as wind among reeds, and their hair grew close to the scalp in coarse, tight curls.
They were nomads, Aeriel discovered, combing the desert for game and other foodstuffs.
That they had taken away her torn and bloodied kirtle and given her one of their own garments, Aeriel realized the first time she had awakened clearheaded enough to take in her surroundings.
Their leader, Aeriel learned, was called Orroto-to—a tall, spare woman of middle years and few words. She tended Aeriel's wound with poultices and herbal broths. At first Aeriel slept much, but gradually, as Solstar rose toward its zenith and Oceanus waned, she felt her strength beginning to return. And the Ma'a-mbai bore her along with them as they moved east.
At one point, after much travel and little resting, the Ma'a-mbai laid their camp next to a stony wall, drove their staves into the sand, and hung their canopies from them. Aeriel they laid in the shade of one of these, and Orroto-to knelt beside her, feeding her choice bits of a roasted desert hare. Aeriel turned to her; she was feeling well enough for conversation.
"The desert cannot hold much food," said Aeriel.
Orroto-to tore off another tender bit. "There is enough," she said.
Aeriel savored the taste of the morsel in her mouth. "Still," she said, "there would be more for your people if I were not here." She had not touched the duarough's velvet pouch—now worn on a thong about her neck—since she had been with the desert folk.
Their hospitality did not permit a guest to draw upon her own provisions.
The desert woman checked the poultices on Aeriel's throat and added a few drops of water from a shallow dish on the sand beside her. "The Pendarlon has asked us to see to you," she said, "and that is enough."
"The Pendarlon?" said Aeriel, puzzled. "Who is that?"
Orroto-to gave a throaty laugh; her wise, pale brown eyes danced. "You do not know? He is the one who rescued you."
Aeriel gazed at her, surprised. "The lyon?" The other nodded. Aeriel glanced down. She had occasionally heard the people of her village exclaim oaths of "By the Pendarlon," but she had never used the expression herself. "But," she said at the last, "what does it mean?"
"Pendar-lon," her physician explained. "It means 'Warden of Pendar.' " That her voice held no rancor encouraged Aeriel to inquire further.
"And where is Pendar?" she asked.
Orroto-to looked at her in surprise. "Why, this," she exclaimed with a nod that took in everything around them. "All that you see about you to the horizon and beyond."
"But I thought," said Aeriel, "I thought that Pendar was a great land of cities and ancient wisdom. Talb said the Old Ones lived in Pendar."
The desert woman nodded sadly, offered Aeriel the last morsel, but Aeriel shook her head. She had eaten enough. "Once, little pale one, once. Their glory is all laid waste now." She fed the tidbit to one of the thin, sandy camp dogs and washed the grease from her dark fingers in the shallow bowl. "The Old Ones are few and far between. They are growing afraid of the outside—most of them hide in their domed cities now, far from each other, shut off from the world." She shook the water from her hands and waved them slowly to dry. "They come out so seldom now that most of your people think they all died years ago." The wisewoman shook her head. "Not so. You should know better."
"What does the Pendarlon do?" inquired Aeriel.
"Ah," said Orroto-to, "he runs back and forth over the land, guarding the borders and looking to the safety of his people."
"Who are his people?" said Aeriel.
The dark chieftess gave another low, throaty laugh and gestured toward the Ma'a-mbai youths filling their waterskins at the well. "We are his people," she said. She looked up at two skyhawks circling lazily in the black heavens. "Those are his people." She nodded toward a dune where three sand-rats scampered and played. "There are his people," she said, "and there." In the distance a herd of gazelle leapt and bounded like tumblers.
"Every creature within his borders is one of his people," Orroto-to said.
"He is your ruler, then," said Aeriel, but the dark woman shook her head.
"He does not rule us. No one can rule us. No one can rule anyone who does not first agree to the ruling." She smiled a trace at Aeriel and patted the little camp dog, which was whining for more tidbits. "One must rule oneself."
"But," began Aeriel, puzzled, "but if the Pendarlon..."
"He is our warden and our guide," the chieftess told her, "and everyone is free."
Aeriel shook her head, still not understanding. "But do you, Orroto-to, not rule the Ma'a-mbai?"
"I but lead them," the other replied, "and they follow only so long as they choose."
Aeriel considered it for a long moment, then, and did not understand. "But what am I now?" she asked finally. "Now that I am within the lyon's borders. Have I, too, become one of his people?"
"No," her companion answered, getting up from the sand and shooing the small dog away. "You belong still to the Avarclon, though you are the leosol's guest and under his protection now."
"And who is the Warden of Avaric?" asked Aeriel. She had never before heard of an Avaric-lon.
"The Starhorse," said the other, straightening. "The equustel."
"The equustel," cried Aeriel, sitting up suddenly. "But I am going..."
The chieftess nodded. "Yes, the Pendarlon has told me. And he has said he will return to aid you."
"When?" cried Aeriel, reaching out to stay Orroto-to from going. "When will he return?"
"When you are healed," the woman answered. "Lie down now and rest. I must go work on the new walking stick I am carving, and you must not disturb the poultice on your neck." Then she turned and ducked gracefully out from under the canopy.
"How long?" insisted Aeriel. Already her head swam from sitting.
Orroto-to paused and turned, gave a slight shrug, and shook her head. "He comes when he comes," she replied. "He did not say how long. Rest now, little pale one, and patience.
You must wait."
Aebiel waited. The Ma'a-mbai moved by day with only brief stops for rest and water.
Solstar slowly reached its zenith and descended, set. The Planet waxed. As nightshade settled down, the Ma'a-mbai made camp and lived off their stores, wove, mended tools, and sang stories. They were great singers of tales beside their white fires, some reciting ancient verses while others blew on soft woodwinds or tapped their walking sticks and tambours. Aeriel heard strange tales of all the peoples of the world, and of ancient days on Oceanus as well.
But her favorite was a desert tale, the song oftheYouth-Who-Tried-to-Give-Up-His-Walking-Stick. But every time he pretended to forget it and left it behind, it came skipping and jigging over the sand in pursuit. Until it had rapped him soundly on the head three times, shouting, "What are you doing? Don't you know I am yours? If I did not run after you, you'd just have to come back and find me!"—this until the youth learned that some things it is wise not to lay down. Hearing this tale by the cookfires late that first fortnight, Aeriel had laughed till her sides were sore.
At last long nightshade passed and Solstar rose. The Ma'a-mbai took up their wandering again. The wound on Aeriel's neck had healed over in a smooth, white scar and she found herself able to walk with the train the length of each march without tiring. Orroto-to gave her a carved walking stick then and taught her to stalk the cautious desert creatures: hares and deer and dusthens.
Soon Aeriel could throw deftly enough to fell quarry at ninety paces—giving her staff, when she launched it, that peculiar flick of the wrist which the chieftess had shown her, a flick which caused the arcing shaft to reverse itself with a snap in midflight, bringing its heavy, knotted crown down in a hard, swift stroke. After that Aeriel brought what game she could to the cookfires, and no longer held back when sharing in her hosts' food.
Solstar rose and set three times while Aeriel remained with the Ma'a-mbai. The days were long, the nights cool and pleasant, but at last she grew weary with the waiting. A change had overtaken her in the desert where all is patience and peace. She felt fitter, freer, stronger, surer. And her body was losing some of its youthful boniness. For the first time she felt she was beginning to resemble a maid beneath her kirtle, and not a stick-doll made of spindletwigs.
There were other changes, too. Once she had remarked to Orroto-to, "Chieftess, are you darker than when I first came?" and the woman had laughed, saying, "No, but Solstar is burning you pale." And another time Aeriel had asked her, "Orroto-to, are you shorter than when I first met you?" but again the chieftess laughed. "No, little one. You are growing taller."
But time fast was fleeting away. Aeriel had been all of three day-months with the Ma'a-mbai, and in another two, the icarus would fly to find his final bride. Dawn was coming up for the fourth time since she had left the castle of the vampyre, when she said to the leader of the desert people, "I am going. I can wait no more on the Pendarlon. If I must find the Avarclon myself, so I must. Even now I may be too late."
Orroto-to nodded and gazed at her with her wise, dark eyes. "You are free," she said.
"You must do as you must. If your walking stick has been lying too long, you should take it up again, and go where it leads. I will send the Pendarlon after you, when he comes."
Aeriel could think of no word for thanks. The chieftess nodded to her slightly, the only gesture of farewell her people had, then turned back to the Ma'a-mbai. Their procession began slowly to move on. Aeriel raised her staff to them, then turned north toward Oceanus, and began to walk. She had not been walking many hours when she heard the padding of paws in the sand behind her.
She turned as the Pendarlon bounded up beside her.
"You are an impatient one, daughter," he said. "I sought the Ma'a-mbai only to find you gone."
"Why did you wait so long to come?" Aeriel asked him as he fell into walking slowly beside her. "My wound healed all of two day-months ago."
"That is not the only wound you were healing of, daughter," the leosol replied. "But if you are fully rested now, I will take you to the Avarclon."
Aeriel nodded; the lyon bowed his head and she saw she was to mount. Putting her wrist through the braided loop at the head of her walking stick and adjusting the thong of the black velvet bag about her neck, Aeriel rested her hands on the Pendarlon's shaggy shoulders and slid onto his back.
"Hold to my mane, now," he said, and with a great bound, they were off across the dunes swifter than a greyhound. The lyon ran in bounds so long and smooth there was no jolt at all when he touched the ground and sprang again. Aeriel held to two great hanks of his fiery gold hair, which was silky and soft as satinflax.
The horizon rose and dipped at every stride.
The lyon was running straight for Oceanus, which ascended slowly but visibly. Aeriel at length grew tired of sitting and, her arms wrapped tight around his massive neck, she lay down along his back and closed her eyes. Perhaps she slept.
They ran for hours over the dunes. Rested, Aeriel pulled herself into a sitting position on the lyon's back again. Later, she ate and slept again. The leosol never slackened his pace or paused to rest. They ran past the ruins of fantastic domed cities—dark as burned-out lanterns, their domes cracked and scored with age. Once, on the far horizon she thought she saw one city that was alight, but it disappeared from view as the Pen-darlon touched down, and she could not find it again when they once more rose into the air.
They ran past the bones of great animals long dead—even their skeletons were oxidizing and falling into powder. They ran past living animals, too—little lithe antelope, and great, shaggy double-humped camels. Several times she spotted kites, sailing slowly overhead, and at one point a pair of four-footed creatures watching her and the leosol intently from far away.
They looked like long-legged, huge-eared dogs with hairy tails, but when Aeriel mentioned them to the lyon, asking what they were, he merely glanced over his shoulder at them, rumbled low and darkly, once, then quickened his pace. The spotted dog-creatures loped away to the northwestward and disappeared. Aeriel forgot about them as she caught sight of a caravan to the west—a long line of riders and pack animals snaking over the dunes.
And once they passed very close to the camp of desert wanderers much like the Ma'a-mbai, save that their loose, sleeveless smocks were of pale blue instead of white. From them went up a great shout when they sighted the Pendarlon from afar. They chanted and waved their lank, knobbed walking staves, while the youths and maidens began an homage dance—bowing low to the ground and trilling a long, high song. The leosol roared mightily in answer, but never slackened his pace. Aeriel watched them recede in the distance, and their chanting and trilling hung in her ears for a long time after.
Oceanus rose higher in the heavens. The hours drifted by. Earth shrank to a fingernail crescent as the sun ascended toward its noon eclipse. Aeriel slept again, and ate from her food-sack. She lost count of the times she ate and slept. The lyon never tired.
But at last, at last when the Planet hung at zenith in the star-crowded sky and Solstar was just nudging at its side, then the lyon's gait began to slacken. His breathing was as quiet and steady as ever, but he ran more leisurely now; Aeriel knew they were nearing the Avarclon. She looked for him, and listened. The last of the sun slid into eclipse.