The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,41

whole keep as lying concealed beneath the surface of the lake. She shook her head, wondering how she was to reach it. She dared not touch the poisoned water.

All at once the lake in front of her began to seethe and boil. Aeriel fell back, alarmed. The Witch's creatures milled nervously. Something beneath the surface was rising to the air. A moment later, the huge, pebbled head of a toad broke through. It was pale lavender, almost translucent. Aeriel could not have wrapped her arms about it if she had tried. The creature looked at her with great, bulbous eyes. Its livid tongue, a little ragged flag, threaded along the wrinkled edges of its mouth. The still, black waters obscured all but the creature's head from view.

"So," it said. Its voice boomed like a kettle, like a hunt horn, like a drum. "Another traveler comes to die upon my lady's shore."

Aeriel stared, realizing the identity of the creature: years older now and far more massive, but the same that had once lured the prince's nurse to the Witch's cause and helped her to betray him. Biting back revulsion, Aeriel called out,

"A traveler, mudlick, but not one who has come to die. I would see your mistress and so must cross the lake."

The mudlick cocked one gelid eye.

"How is it you can see me without tasting the Mere?" it boomed. Aeriel touched the pearl upon her brow. The mudlick shifted uneasily, sinking lower in the black water, retracting its pale eyes from the cool, pure light. "You must be the sorceress who has lately caused my lady so very much trouble."

Aeriel nodded. "Will you take me to her?"

The mudlick belched. "My mistress, the White Lady, sees no one."

Aeriel stood disconcerted. She had not expected so quick and final a rebuff. Resolutely, she folded her arms.

"Very well," she replied. "I will not see her, though I have traveled a long road. My message from her mother, the Ancient Ravenna, will go unsaid. Your mistress will thank you for turning me away."

She spun on her heel and started back toward the jackal cliffs. The scrabbling creatures scattered before her. She had gotten three steps when the mudlick called, "Wait."

Aeriel turned but did not approach. She saw the monstrous thing's forelegs in the water now. They seemed oddly small for its great bulk. It nibbled one of its fingers.

"You are a sorceress," it mused. "Why do you not use your sorcery to cross?"

Because I have no sorcery! Aeriel wanted to cry, but she held her tongue.

"Take me across, or not, exactly as you please," she said at last. She had no more patience left.

The mudlick sighed and lapped at the black, poisonous waters. "My mistress would not thank me for bringing her bane."

"As you please," Aeriel snapped, turning on her heel once more. "I leave you to your lady's wrath when she discovers you repelled her mother's messenger." She counted the paces. One. Two.

"Oh, very well!" the creature cried after her. "Have it your own way. I will take you across to my mistress's keep—just in case what you say might be true—though whether she will let you in, I cannot say. Wade out," it told her, rising higher under the Mere's shadowy surface.

Aeriel recoiled. "I won't touch the water."

The mudlick laughed, a deep gonging sound like hot, hammered metal. It heaved itself from the black, unnaturally calm waters, dragging itself up onto the bank. The dark moisture seemed less to run off its skin than to boil away in a thin vapor. Swallowing her revulsion, Aeriel approached and climbed to crouch just behind the great toad's head, uncertain how much of its body would sink back beneath the Mere. Its pebbled skin, covered with great slippery warts, was cold and had an oily feel.

"It's been a dracg's age since I last ate," the mudlick remarked, surveying the little creatures before it on the bank.

With a motion so quick Aeriel could scarcely follow, its vast jaws gaped, and its long tongue swept out, catching up a dozen of the frantically scattering vermin—along with a great quantity of the bank. The mudlick's jaws snapped shut. It laughed and swallowed, bloated sides heaving. Sickened, Aeriel held on desperately as her porter hauled itself around and slid back into the Mere.

"Stupid things," it croaked.

The black waters curled around its snout and trailed along its sides. Aeriel snatched one foot higher to avoid the Mere's touch. The mudlick bobbed, and Aeriel swallowed hard. She caught glimpses of other