The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,53

to take you with them when they left." The Witch's gaze flicked back to Aeriel, who struggled to maintain her appearance of calm. She must let no hint of what she saw through the casement show on her face. "That is why you hate the world so. The Ancients' going left you prisoner here."

Oriencor glared at Aeriel. "Their leaving me was all my mother's doing—" she started, then stopped herself. Contemptuously, the half-Ancient bowed her white lips in a smile. "But I do not hate the world, little sorceress—though perhaps my mother thought so. I do not care one way or another what happens to the world when I am gone."

Beyond the window, another darkangel fell.

"You are right about the Ancients, though," Oriencor continued evenly. "They broke my heart, leaving me. Soon, however, they will welcome me—they must, for I have proved myself their peer. Have I not labored these thousand years to join them?"

Frowning, Aeriel shook her head, not understanding what the other meant. The White Witch gave a derisive snort. She had turned her attention wholly away from the window now. Hurriedly, Aeriel blanked her features, lest her delight show through. If only she could keep Oriencor occupied a little longer, then the allies had a chance.

"The Ancients will never return here, of course," said the Witch. Her tone grew fierce. "So if I wish to share their company again, it is up to me. Don't you see? I mean to join my peers on Oceanus and claim my birthright there. It is to that end I have been pillaging this planet for a thousand years."

Aeriel stared at her, more baffled than before. But they're dead, she thought. Oriencor spoke as though Oceanus were green and blooming still, not ravaged by plagues and horrors. Unexpectedly, Ravenna's daughter smiled her cool, malevolent smile.

"My mother told you nothing of this, I see. So not even she suspected my plans." The White Witch laughed. "Good."

"She said you were killing the world for vengeance—" Aeriel began.

Oriencor nodded curtly. "Oh, I am. In part. At first, many years ago, I longed simply to ruin my mother's work, to force her and her fellows to abandon this world. I hoped they would construct new chariots and take me with them when they returned home."

Distractedly, she stroked the wet windowsill, its odd moisture pooling in the light of sinking Solstar—yet, Aeriel noticed, wherever Oriencor laid her hand, the water thickened, congealing like candlewax.

"But they were very stubborn," the White Witch sighed. "At last I saw I must obtain the means to depart this world myself."

"But you've no chariot…" Aeriel started. Below, Syllva, in the prow of the foremost Istern barge, was halfway to the keep.

"You underestimate me," the White Witch snapped, her back to the scene below. "I have built one: a fiery engine to cross heaven. What did you think I wanted the duaroughs for?"

Aeriel stared. With the pearl's aid, she envisioned the captured duaroughs deep underground

—building the Witch her means of escape. The lorelei leaned back, bracing her arms against the frozen windowledge. In the air beyond the window, yet another darkangel plummeted, run through by Irrylath.

Below, the Mariners of the islands were clambering onto Winterock's narrow, icy shore. They tried the keep's walls with their weapons, but their spearheads chipped and broke, brittle with the cold. Erin hacked once, experimentally, at the doorless crystal with the blade of the burning sword.

"My fuel is gathered," laughed Oriencor, "though there's so little water on this world, it's taken me a long time to steal enough."

Aeriel could not think what she meant. Water to fuel an engine's fires? Ravenna's daughter smiled thinly.

"Didn't you learn anything in NuRavenna, little sorceress? Water consists of two elements," she said.

"One is a fuel, like wax or oil; the other, a vapor that we breathe and that enables fire to burn. My chariot requires both elements in great quantity."

Even as she spoke, the pearl with eerie clarity strung the beads before Aeriel's inner eye so that she was able to picture what Oriencor described: little spots of fire mating and dancing, twining and untwining upon long strands. Impatiently, the White Witch went on.

"And our world's water, unlike that of Oceanus, contains a third component, one that keeps it soluble even in cold shadow. Life-giving to you," the lorelei said, "it is poisonous to my kind."

Aeriel remembered suddenly the bright, hot liquor Talb the Mage had once distilled to poison a darkangel. Oriencor sighed.

"But bind that component—neutralize it—and water grows murky,

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