The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,5
bleeding off into the Void, weathermakers falling slowly into disrepair."
Brandl's breath quickened. "There's a word for it," he whispered. "An Ancient word: entropy."
Collura glowered at him to be still.
"Ravenna saw but one hope against our declining world's eventual collapse," he said, "against this entropy. Since Oceanus remained deaf to her entreaties, her fellows there refusing to lend their aid across the Void, she realized that she must conjure the means to rescue us herself. Thus she withdrew into her City a dozen thousand daymonths past to begin the weaving of a mighty spell that would halt the entropy and restore the world."
Collum toyed with the folded parchment and at last put it away.
"All of this you know, Brandl."
The young duarough snorted impatiently. "Yes!"
His companion cast another furtive glance over one shoulder as if to be sure Maruha were truly gone.
Brandl leaned forward intently. As the pale girl watched them, she tried not to listen, struggling to retain the blank emptiness of her mind- lest the pin take revenge.
"After the Ravenna withdrew, we strove to live as best we could without the Ancients' guidance. Then the Witch appeared. None know who she is or whence she came, save that she is a water demon, a lorelei. She dwells beyond the desert's edge, in parched regions known as the Waste. Beneath the dark surface of a still, silent lake, her palace stands, cold as poison and fashioned of transparent stone.
"She has, through her sorceries, beleaguered the whole world with drought. Even the once mighty wellsprings of Aiderlan have ceased to flow. Her weaselhounds sniff us out belowground. Who knows what fate awaits those they seize? And she harries the upperlanders as well, stealing their young boys over the years, half a dozen of them. These she has made into darkangels— the icari—each icarus a soulless demon with a dozen dark wings blacker than shadow. Her icari in turn conquered the six strongest nations of Westernesse, transforming the guardian Ions of those lands into gargoyles.
"Then the Witch stole a seventh 'son," a prince of Avaric, Irrylath, gilding his heart with lead and making him into the beginning of a darkangel. As soon as her spell upon him could become complete, she knew she would have half the world in her grasp. In terror, the peoples of Westernesse cried out for the Ravenna to return and vanquish the Witch. But Ravenna has not returned. Her City remains sealed. None know her fate."
Collum choked, his words growing harsh.
"Some fear her dead."
Brandl tried to catch the other's eye, but the bearded duarough would not look at him. The pale girl shrugged nervously, drawn into the tale despite herself. She knew she should not listen— and yet a kind of hunger filled her, a longing for news, for word of the world above. She found herself harkening without meaning to, and the pin twinged warningly as the duaroughs resumed their talk.
"No, it is not the Ravenna who has come forth to oppose the Witch, but another, the dread sorceress Aeriel. Some say she is the Ravenna reborn; some say she is her heir. But whoever she may be, she has, by means of her great magic, freed both Prince Irrylath and the Ions from the Witch's enchantment. The Ions are no longer gargoyles, Prince Irrylath no longer a darkangel."
Collum laughed suddenly, as though hope were beginning to return to him as he warmed to his tale.
Wincing, the pale girl shuddered.
"Irrylath loathes his former mistress now and has raised a great army to Aeriel's cause. He has sworn to plunge his sword Adamantine into the Witch's heart with his own hand, for love of the sorceress Aeriel."
Brandl sighed, gazing up at the close stone ceiling above the white flame of their little fire. "Yes, that.
That is what I long to hear of. If only I could be with them," he murmured, "up there, where things matter,"
The upperlander shifted fitfully. A desperate restlessness seized her. The pain in her head throbbed.
She sat hunched, trying to block out the sound of the others' talk.
Collum grunted disapprovingly at Brandl's words. "Hold now, boy. Our life is here, along the underpaths—unless you want to run off like Maruha's worthless brother. There are few enough of us left as it is! The gears of the world won't go on turning of themselves."
"But on this war hangs the very fate of the world!" the younger duarough protested. "And it's the Witch's doing that our numbers are now so few..."