The vampyre whirled, as if her unexpected words had made him suddenly aware of her again. She felt the wind of his whirling buffet her, was conscious how easily with one swift sweep of wing or arm he might bat her back over brink's edge to the plain far, far below. Watching him, his tightened lips and glaring eyes, for a moment she feared he might spring—but he subsided at last, breathing heavily. "Go, then," he said abruptly.
"And weave."
Aeriel stood gazing at him, knowing she ought to be thankful, or surprised, and was neither— only relieved. "You will let me live." Now that he finally had granted it, she could think of nothing else to say.
"For now," he snapped. "Until the morrow." His voice sounded oddly hollow. "Before I leave this castle in the morning, I shall strangle you."
Aeriel faced him and said nothing, refusing to let her heart quail. If the vampyre were not dead by the morrow's morn, she told herself, her life would be worth little anyway.
The icarus turned from her, impatiently, made a gesture of dismissal. "Begone."
Aeriel left the top stone step, came forward into the garden, started away from him through the wild-flowering, fruitless tangle. But as she went, she heard the rustle of wings as he turned again to view her.
"Ah, me," she heard him murmuring, "girl, even your walk has changed. You move straight-shouldered as a princess now, no longer creep and cringe like a little slave."
Aeriel fought an impulse to hunch, hurry away, hide from his gaze. She held to her pace and did not turn, for she feared that if she should so much as glance at him, he might call her back—and she did not trust his sudden quietness. It puzzled her. She could not make it out. He sighed then, as one might sigh over a lost trifle.
"It will be a pity killing you."
Aeriel gave no sign that she had heard. The softness of his words rilled her with dread.
She continued swiftly, steadily away from him across the garden, and took the steps down into the caves.
The duarough was waiting for her at the base of the stairs with a rushlight in his hand.
Aeriel felt her heart lift now when she saw him. Her chill from the darkangel began to abate. She felt a smile dawning upon her lips, her first since she had left the Pendarlon.
The little man gave a startled snort as he spotted her, fell back a pace.
"Heavens, but you've grown, child," he told her as she reached the bottom step, "and not all of that up."
Aeriel gave a laugh, and was surprised to find herself still capable of laughter. She brushed the tears from her cheeks. "I think perhaps that food laid into your magical pouch acquires magical properties, Little Mage of Downwending."
The duarough blushed and looked down at his feet. "So they still remember me by that name," he sighed, smiling. "I'll not deny I'm pleased."
Aeriel handed him the velvet pouch.
"The Avarclon's hoof," he asked, "the immortal one, mind you? Good, good." He took the pouch from her and put it in his sleeve. "I'm glad you figured out that much from the rime. If only I'd been given a little more time for explanations!" He glanced toward the ceiling, as though aware the darkangel stood in the garden above. Then he returned his gaze to Aeriel. "I must say, though," he exclaimed, "you took your own dear time about returning. I was half afraid you had given up or else run home."
Aeriel shook her head and felt the scar again. "The vampyre bit me. I was a long time healing."
At that the duarough blanched and held the rushlight high that he might see. He turned away, face drawn. "Daughter, daughter, I never meant that he should catch you. I sent word ahead----"
"The Pendarlon saved me," she said, "and left me with kind people until I grew strong."
The duarough sighed then, a little relieved. "Well, at least I know my magic has a bit of po-tence left. I was afraid the skiff would not transform, and then you would be left stranded without the lyon's knowing." He shook his head and clucked and put his fingers together. "I thought at first when you said the vampyre bit you, that you meant he had caught you and left you for dead. I knew that he had fought with the Pendarlon—his slashes and wing were proof of that—but I began to fear the leosol had come too late for the saving of you—you took such a time returning___"
He stopped himself, seemingly embarrassed at his own outpouring of words, and Aeriel laughed again.
"But enough of this." He clapped his hands with sudden vigor and became stern with himself. "For I have work to do, and so have you." He reached into the pouch and pulled the starhoof from it, stood gazing at it. "I must begin the brewing of the bridal cup, and you must make the gown." Then he halted again a moment, gazed earnestly at Aeriel, and his voice grew quieter, as though even yet he could not believe it. "Truly, daughter, are you well?" She nodded, and the duarough laughed, shaking his head. "Well, good, then.
So I think we'd best be off, the both of us." Then he hurried away down the shore along the river running. Aeriel felt a final, quiet laugh forming in her throat. He seemed a little in awe of her, and his sudden brusqueness was just to hide it. She turned and walked up the riverbank toward the steps that led up to the castle. Leaving the light and warmth of the caves, she felt the chill of the vampyre's keep descending upon her, but she shook it off. She had resolved herself in the garden above to have done with helpless dread. There was not time for it, and she had weaving to attend to.
When Aeriel came to the room of the wraiths, they were much as she had seen them when first she had come to the castle—they paced the floor, or sat rocking and moaning, or writhed and shrieked and tore their hair. They were all of them still thin as mummified birds: their starved faces held only dark, eyeless hollows, and their hair hung stiff and brittle as nettleseed silk. She still could tell none of them apart. The only difference was that the garments they wore were not the coarse, drab things she had seen them in at first, but light and airy shifts of spun charity.
The wraiths saw her standing in the doorway all at once, and some of them gave a feeble cry. She went into the room among them and they all gathered around and reached to touch her as though they could not believe she were really there. "You have come back,"
they said, "You have come back. You were gone a long time. We called for you and called," the lethargy of their voices telling Aeriel how pitifully their wits had dulled in her absence. "We grew so lonely with no one to talk to and sing us tales," they mumbled.
Aeriel bit her lip, let out her breath and hoped she might, over the day-month's time, restore their faculties somewhat. "Why did you stay away so long?" pleaded the wraiths.
"I ran away from the castle," said Aeriel.
"But he has caught you again and returned you," they moaned.
She shook her head. "He caught me once, but at the last, I got away."
"But why did you return," they cried, rousing, "if you escaped him?"
Aeriel smiled. Already their reason seemed to be quickening. "I only went because I had an errand to do. Now that is done, so I returned."
"But it is madness," cried the wraiths. "You were safe away from him. Why did you come back?"
"I promised I would help you," said Aeriel. "I could not leave you stranded here to die."
"We are grateful," said the wraiths, subsiding. They dropped their voices, glanced furtively about. "But you must hide. He will kill you if he finds you."
"He knows I am here," Aeriel replied, taking up her spindle from the floor where she had left it last. "And he means to kill me tomorrow." The wraiths began to moan again, but she soothed them, "Hush. Much may befall betwixt now and then."
She sat down on the low stool among the wraiths and began to spin. She was months out of practice, but she had not lost the knack: immediately a golden thread sprang to her fingers and she let the turning spindle drop. She had a host of new-learned desert tales to spin for them as well.
"Now," she said, "shall I tell you of my journey over the desert and under the plain?"
Aeriel spent much of her time with the wraiths, spinning the thread for the garment of the vampyre's new bride and telling them stories of her sojourn on the desert and plain. She also went up to see the gargoyles often. At first they were as starved and as savage as before, but after she had fed them, they grew tame again, so docile in fact that though they still snapped and fought among themselves, some of them allowed her to caress them briefly, and a few would even take food from her hand.
She fell to studying the silver leashes that held them to the tower. And she saw that the chains were attached to each smooth brazen collar not by means of a lock, or even by a welded link, but rather by a slotted silver pin that might, by the proper sequence of sliding and turning, be slipped free. Nonetheless, though the weird beasts constantly tore at and worried their shackles, Aeriel perceived that only a human hand could trip the bolts and unloose their chains.
What time she did not spend with the wraiths and the gargoyles, she spent down in the caves with the duarough. He had converted the main treasury room into a sort of laboratory. A complex apparatus of slender metal tubes extended around the periphery with hardly a break, so that Aeriel could scarcely get in the door. Many dusty old books lay open about the floor, though in the middle of the room, there was still left considerable open space—and at the very center, the little fire burned as usual, unflagging and undying.
"Tell me," said Aeriel, sitting beside the fire, "how this will help us kill the vampyre."
The little man bustled about the apparatus. He hurried over to a book to consult some diagram or formula, then hurried back to adjust the flame under one of his bubbling containers. Then he brushed off his hands and came to sit by the fire with Aeriel.
"Out of this," he replied, gesturing at his handiwork, "I shall distill the bridal cup."
"You mean to poison him?" said Aeriel, quietly. Somehow, she had never before this brought herself to speculate what method they would use. It had not seemed real enough.
But now the deed was imminent. Poison. So it was to be poison. It brought a bitterness into her mouth, knowing.
But the duarough was shaking his head. "Daughter," he chided, "the darkangel is poisoned already. This cup is no harm to any living creature, such as you or I, but to the vampyre, well..."
"What must I do?"
"You must give it to the bride to have him drink for a wedding toast. Do this when you attend her—by the way, how comes the spinning?"
"The spinning is done," said Aeriel, "and the weaving will be by late afternoon." She glanced over at the duarough's distillery. "And the icarus," she said, "I have not seen him lately. Where is he?"
The duarough rose and dusted his hands, turned back toward his apparatus. "He has flown," he answered. "He flew at noon to find a bride." The little man paused a moment, glanced back over his shoulder at Aeriel. "And you, daughter. How are you bearing up—
still troubled dreams?"
She looked away, nodded. "Sometimes." Her sleep was never free of the darkangel now.
Strange. When she had been beneath his spell, she had never dreamed of him. Aeriel rubbed her arms. "When the darkangel is dead," she murmured, more to herself than to the mage, "they will trouble me no more." She stood silent a moment, looking at nothing.
Even now she could not shake off" the cold. "It chills me to think what we are planning,"
she said.
Across from her, Talb sighed, turned back to adjusting his tubes and vials. "It chills me, too, betimes, daughter. But would you rather accept the alternative?"
Aeriel touched her throat and shook her head. "No. No." She rose and shoved the thought from her mind. If they did not slay the darkangel, their world would fall. She dropped her chafing arms and sighed. "Well, if, as you said, the vampyre is flown, I must go to them and set them free."
The duarough half-turned. "What's that?" he said. "What do you mean—the wraiths?"
Aeriel shook her head. "The gargoyles," she replied. "I resolved to free them as soon as he was gone."
The little man's brows drew together worriedly. "Daughter, he will not be much pleased with that, when he returns."
Aeriel sighed, and shook herself. "It makes no matter. To please him is no longer my great concern." She was a little surprised at the boldness of her words, even more surprised to find that they were true. "The gargoyles suffer. I shall free them."
The duarough looked at her then in very wonderment. "Five months of desert life," he said softly. "Ah, mistress, how you are changed."
Aeriel finished the weaving by late afternoon—a long piece of pale gold cloth finer and thinner and lighter than breath. And then she took the steps to the gargoyle tower. She knew they could hear her quiet step on the stairs because they had begun to give little moans and yips of anticipation at her approach. And when she emerged onto the circular terrace of the tower, the gargoyles descended from their platforms and strained toward her against their chains. She caressed each of them in turn: patting their rough reptilian hides, ruffling their fish-scales, or feathers, or fur.
"Run fast," she told them; "fly far, far off where he cannot find you if I fail."
Then she slipped the pins that held the chains to their collars (the collars themselves would not come free) and set the gargoyles at liberty. Those that could fly staggered into the air and coursed away in odd directions, more rapid than Aeriel would have thought possible on their skeletal wings. Those that could not plunged from the tower's top and landed, seemingly without injury, on the grassy plain far, far below. They streaked off in opposite directions, wailing a high, keening cry of freedom like great herons, or wild horses, or wolves.
Then Aeriel turned and descended into the castle again, to wait. Hours dragged and drifted by. The Planet waxed. Solstar sank lower in the ebon sky and the darkangel did not return. Aeriel fingered the cool step of the stone staircase on which she sat. The air of the stairwell chilled her, felt damp. Her palms prickled with sweat. Her mouth tasted of metal, zinc.