The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,35
"to make a banner of. And tell my husband he will find me at the Witch's Mere."
The dark girl carefully tucked the folded square of yellow silk into her shift. Aeriel drew back. Behind them, the City's bright beacon flared suddenly from the highest tower within the Dome. Aeriel started, turning.
"Heron, what is it?" she cried.
The white bird skimmed to her across the dunes. "Melkior is burning my lady to ash," she said. "Time we all of us were gone."
She veered away then, but Aeriel reached to catch her wing.
"Wait, heron. Where are you bound?"
The Ancient's messenger indignantly shook herself free.
"I have my own part still in Ravenna's task" was all she would say before gliding away across the crests of sand. The desert air lifted her up, soaring. Within the Dome, the beacon fire blazed higher, brighter still. Aeriel and Erin watched the white bird dwindle in the distance and disappear. The dark girl shouldered her pack and water bag and embraced Aeriel again. At last she lifted her hand in farewell as she started away. Aeriel raised her own in reply before the other disappeared among the dunes. A moment later, she herself strode off in another direction across the sand.
9
Bright Burning
Aeriel traveled alone over the endless dry dunes toward the Witch's Mere. The pearl helped her see soft places in the sand, avoid those banks that had begun to shift. She walked a long time before pausing to rest, and even then it was not fatigue that stopped her. If I press on too hard, Erin will do the same, she found herself thinking, illogically, and yet she halted, strangely sure it was for Erin's sake.
She envisioned the dark girl, miles away, sinking down, one hand resting on the pommel of the sword, unwilling to unfasten it, even now. When Erin brought her little skin water bag to her lips, Aeriel tasted water. The dark girl took a handful of flavorless chickseed from her pouch and chewed on it, coughed dryly, sipped again. She sighed heavily and at last lay down, cheek pillowed on her arm.
Shoulders slumping, Aeriel felt a kind of resonant fatigue. Abruptly, she caught herself, surprised how vivid her imagining had been. It was not her own weariness she sensed, but that of her far-off friend. Did some connection now link them: pearl to sword? Aeriel frowned, wondering. The dark girl's presence seemed to overlie her own vision—lightly, yet as distincdy as an image reflected on water. If she ignored it, it faded. Yet when she paid it heed, it sharpened, growing more vivid. Exhausted, Erin slept. Later, when she awoke, Aeriel rose and walked on.
The night lengthened. At last Aeriel neared the desert's edge. The sand underfoot turned from pale orange to greyer drab. Bits of parched, broken ground showed through. An occasional frayed shoot thrust up through a crack. She sensed Erin, leagues distant, also nearing the desert's edge. The dark girl hove into sight of the allied camp sooner than Aeriel had expected. The terrain of the Waste was uneven there, fraught with canyons and cliffs. Guards and sentries stood posted everywhere. They stared at Erin as though she had returned from the dead.
"You know me," she snapped wearily. "Stop gaping." They made no attempt to stop her, only called for their captains. "Where is he, Irrylath?" Erin demanded. "I bring word of Aeriel."
They stared at the glaive, burning white in its sheath. "The Aeriel!" she heard others murmuring, abuzz.
"A message from the Aeriel…"
Far away, the pale girl had to smile. Already her name, like Ravenna's, was being used as a title.
Impatient, Erin strode past the sentries without waiting for their leave. She headed toward the great council tent at the center of the camp. Rose silk, it billowed huge, breathing and sighing in the slight desert wind. Again, the sentries gaped, but these had the presence of mind to cross their pikes. Erin halted.
Aeriel heard voices through the tent's open entryway.
"My son, we must press on…"
"Brother, Aeriel or no Aeriel, our troops cannot simply continue to languish here."
"… nightshade upon daymonth, Cousin, going nowhere—"
Hand resting on the pommel of her sword, Erin told the sentries, "Let me pass. I come from Aeriel."
Within, the drone of discussion abruptly ceased.
"Who's there?" demanded a voice. Though rough, it was surely Irrylath's. Aeriel fought the leaping of her heart.
"Sentry, answer your commander," a second voice directed, lighter pitched, but for all that, more like the prince's than Aeriel had ever realized: his cousin, Sabr.