The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,27
Slaves."
Coming nearer, she knelt again before Aeriel, speaking urgently. At a sweep of Ravenna's hand, the light in the chamber dimmed. The sword whispered. The pearllight glowed. Once more the colored beads of fire darted, but not upon the surface of the pearl this time. They were within her own mind now, swirling and shimmering, put there by the pearl. With a gasp, Aeriel touched the jewel on her brow and watched the images dancing before her inner eye.
"We are a very old race, Aeriel," the Ancient said, "immensely learned, but far from wise. Once our chariots traveled to the last reaches of heaven. But that was long ago. This moon, your world, was deserted then, dead—until we took it upon ourselves to make it habitable. We created vapors for us to breathe, peoples, animals, plants. Members of our race could spend dozens of hours abroad before needing to return to the Domes. And so from across the heavens we came, to trifle in our garden."
The pearl showed Aeriel everything Ravenna described: the great machinery manufacturing air, the world seeded, the first small creatures released.
"Eventually, the ecology of this world began to evolve on its own. Scientists came then, walking among you and studying your kind. I was such a one. But I dallied, too—to my bitter regret. We all dallied. Coundess of your people are our descendants, many generations removed. In my folly, I bore a daughter and raised her here, in NuRavenna, as one of my own race."
A sigh of despair. Aeriel studied the pearl-made image of Ravenna, centuries younger, cradling a fair-skinned infant in her arms. The Ancientlady groaned.
"I should have done what my fellows did with their own halfüng progeny: sent her out into the world to become some great heroine or queen. Instead, selfishly, I kept her, promising that one day she would return home with me. A lie— though one I hoped, desperately, to somehow make true. But that goal proved unattainable. No creature born here can survive on Oceanus. The pull of our world would crush you to bits. Yet I allowed my daughter to believe herself wholly of my Ancient race and that Oceanus was her birthright. Again and again I delayed my return, postponing the inevitable moment when I must reveal to her the truth."
Aeriel saw a young girl barely in womanhood, with the same proud cheeks and high forehead as her mother, her hair the same jet black. Her nose was thinner than Ravenna's, though, the chin more pointed, her complexion paler, the eyes slanted and green.
"Oriencor," Ravenna breathed. "O my daughter, Oriencor."
A space of silence. At last Ravenna roused.
"Then came the news. We had all been recalled. A great disaster upon our home world: war—a thing not known in centuries. Some of my colleagues had prompted wars among you here, upon your world, that they might study them, but that our own world might one day be engulfed in such a conflict, none ever dreamed.
"Most of us sped home at once. My daughter was eager to be off, to join the fight and unleash against those of our own people who had become our foes the Ancient skills which I had taught her. But I demurred. Nor would I allow her to go without me. No one wanted her, anyway: I was the only one who considered her human. At last, I confessed her ancestry to her."
Ravenna's words grew low and halting.
"She went mad. Cursing me, she fled and vanished into the wild marches at desert's edge. When the last chariots departed, I remained behind, searching, but I could find no trace. In the end, in despair, I concluded she must have perished."
In her mind's eye, Aeriel saw the Ancient chariots leaping away on plumes of fire into the black, starry sky. Ravenna's daughter screaming after them as she fled the City. Her mother searching, combing the planet in vain. Aeriel could have wept for the dark-haired halfling girl. When the Ancient spoke again, her tone had flattened into exhaustion.
"Those few of us left upon this world had to decide what to do. Messages from our home world had ceased. Only silence answered our hails. All of our chariots were gone. Some urged the building of new chariots, but we had neither time now nor the means. Already this world had begun to die. Artificial from the first, it had never been intended as self-sustaining. A handful of us, cut off from our mother planet, could never hope to