The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,33

since Orm. No shade now trailed her by any light. Sighing in frustration, she let her eyes stray to the far horizon. The Witch's Mere lay direcdy ahead.

She understood this somehow without having to think about it. The downy light of the pearl pervaded her senses.

Then something stirred among the shadows of the dunes, something dark as a Shadow itself, black as the night. Aeriel beheld a figure coming toward her across the swells of sand. Even so distant and by starlight, she recognized it at once: that which, like a second self, had shadowed her since desert's edge, the one she had dreaded and fled so desperately—because to have turned and faced her follower would have reminded her intolerably of her own identity and of all the other memories that the pin had banned.

She felt no fear now as the dark form approached.

"So you have found me at last," the pale girl said. "I'm glad."

"You led me a merry chase," the other snapped. "When I had no light to track you belowground, I thought you lost—until the heron found me."

Aeriel gazed at the one halted before her. Erin stood as tall as she herself did now. The dark girl wore a blue shift, sleeveless with great open armholes for ventilation. If she had carried a desert walking stick, Aeriel might almost have taken her for one of the Ma'ambai. Barefoot and sandy, the dark islander looked weathered thin, her skin still black as a starless sky. Erin cast a reproachful glance at the white bird.

"She led me within sight of the City's beacon before abandoning me, hours since."

The heron fluffed. "And why should I do more?" she inquired. "You are a demanding shadow."

Having lost her scorpion in the sand, she stalked haughtily away.

"Are you well?" Aeriel asked.

Erin reached to touch her hand, as if to assure herself the other was real. She nodded. "And you?

You look strange somehow—unweathered. The heron told me what befell you, of the black bird and the pin."

Aeriel shook off the odd, lingering feeling of newness and drew the dark girl near. "Yes, I am well,"

she said. "Ravenna tended me." When Erin released her at last, she continued, "But I have had no news of Irrylath and the army in daymonths."

The dark girl shook her head, laughing a little with fatigue and relief. "Nor I, since I left them two daymonths ago."

Aeriel touched the other's cheek, remembering the distant bustle of the camp and the sigh of tents.

Two daymonths—had it really been so long? "Tell me what happened when first you discovered me gone."

Erin leaned wearily against the Dome. "A furious uproar and a fruitless search ensued. Of course your disappearance was all my fault—so your husband would have it, as I was the last who had been with you." The dark girl's voice grew guarded, tight. "At last a sentry confessed to having glimpsed you striding off across the dunes, and your fine prince Irrylath almost ran him through."

Listening, Aeriel closed her eyes. The pearl strung all Erin described before her mind's eye in moving beads of fire.

"Your tracks beyond camp's edge were found at last, ending in a moldering scatter of stinking feathers. Irrylath grew wild at the sight of them, choking out something about the lorelei building the wings of her darkangels from such."

A dozen paces away from them, the heron preened. The stars above burned bright and cold, little pinpricks of light. Aeriel eyed the constellation called the Maidens' Dance.

"And then?"

"When it was concluded you must have been plucked away by icari, taken hostage by the Witch, the camp fell into turmoil."

Aeriel flinched, her mind on fire with the other's words.

"What of Irrylath?" she insisted. Every news of him was precious to her.

Erin's voice grew tighter still. "Great protestations of grief! He should have appointed you bodyguards; he should have warned you against walking unescorted abroad—small help all this contrition after the fact," she scoffed. "His mother the Lady Syllva spoke of taking the Edge Adamantine away from him lest he do himself or others harm."

The pale girl bowed her head, appalled. "And when you departed to follow, to find me," she managed, "was he yet wild with this grief?"

Said Erin acidly, "His cousin Sabr comforted him."

White jealousy flared in Aeriel then, hot as a flame. She felt the dark girl's hand tighten upon her own.

Erin muttered, "I'll put a dagger in his heart when next I see him."

"You'll not," Aeriel exclaimed, her eyes flying open now. Erin tried to pull