The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,15

lady and the room.

"Can you talk at all, child?" the dark lady asked her.

The girl ducked her head. She could not speak, did not want to, did not want to try.

"Try," the tall woman urged. "Let me see how deep the pin has bit."

The pale girl shivered. "Uh," she managed, a dull and ugly sound. "Uhn, mmh."

The other frowned. "Deep, I see."

"Mmh," the pale girl muttered. "Ngh."

One hand left her cheek. She sensed it hovering above the pin.

"Cold as winterock," the dark lady whispered. "Feel how it chills the air! There can be no leaving it, then. Rest your head against me, child."

Gratefully, the girl pressed her cheek to the rich fabric of the other's robe. Some of it felt slick and cool, like wet leaves. Other places were warm and napped, like stone moss or mouse's fur. She nestled closer.

"Peace," the tall woman told her. "Be still." All at once, without warning, the girl felt the pin seized and twisted, plucked suddenly free. The air gave a crackling hiss, smelled acrid of scorching. Then pain rushed into the wound like a flood of fire. Screaming, the girl tore herself from the other's grasp. The dark lady stood, holding the pin up between thumb and forefinger. It was over three inches long, with a crossguard near the blunt end, like a tiny sword. White flame danced along its length. Its point gleamed, wet and red.

The tall woman reached out to her, her expression full of compassion and horror and grief. With a shriek, the pale girl fended her off. Her own hand came away from her head covered in blood. The room seemed full of brightness now, the fiery pain consuming her. She felt as though her whole being might burn away in the flash. And she was screaming still—but no longer because of the pain. She was screaming because she remembered now. She remembered everything.

5

Aeriel

Her name was Aeriel. She remembered now: born in Pirs, heir to the suzerain there, then sold into slavery after her father's overthrow. And she remembered the darkangel, swooping down on his dozen black pinions to carry her away.

On Avaric's white plain,

where an icarus now wings…

The words ran through her mind like an incantation. She recalled the wedding sari she had donned in marriage to the darkangel—how, to dissolve the evil enchantment upon him, she had surprised him with a magic cup made from the hoof of a dead starhorse:

Then strong-hoof of a starhorse

must hallow him unguessed

If adamant's edge is to plunder

his breast.

Using the keen edge of an unbreakable blade, she had extracted the darkangel's leaden heart and given him her own to make him mortal again. Once free of the Witch's spell, Prince Irrylath had turned in horror against his former mistress and begun raising an army to destroy her.

Then, only, may the Warhorse

and Warrior arise

To rally the warhosts, and thunder

the skies.

Aeriel, meanwhile, had traversed half the nations of Westernesse to rescue the lost Ions, once guardians of the world, who had been turned into gargoyles by the Witch—for without these powerful allies, Aeriel knew, her husband's burgeoning warhost had little hope of victory.

"What befell you then," the dark lady said, "once you had rescued my Ions at Orm, and stood in the temple Flame, and burned your shadow away?"

Aeriel could not see her questioner. The Ancient's voice seemed to come from the air. She felt as though she were floating, suspended in nothing. She heard another voice as well: murmuring, telling everything, and realized presently it was her own. Images of whatever she remembered and spoke aloud swirled before her in the darkness in little running beads of fire.

"After Orm, we departed for Esternesse," she murmured.

"Where the great conclave was held?"

Aeriel nodded. "Yes." The pictures of fire strung themselves before her on the darkened air. "But first the women-of-learning and the magic-men brought forth the starhorse."

"Who had been dead," the other prompted. "Who had been killed years ago by the darkangel."

"The priestesses said they could rebuild the Horse," Aeriel replied, "call back his wandering soul and revive him in new flesh, the very image of the old, with memory of his former life and death."

"Did they succeed?" the Ancient persisted. "Tell me." "

"Oh, yes," Aeriel breathed, the memory scene unfolding before her, clear as though it were this very moment happening. She nodded. "The starhorse. Yes. I remember him."

The crowd has stood flocked in the great square before the Istern palace, all the people with their plum-colored skin, the women in their turbans