The Pearl of the Soul of the World - By Meredith Ann Pierce Page 0,63
pale girl frowned, gazing at Irrylath. "Go?"
The pearlstuff in her blood swirled restlessly. Yes. Have you not understood what I have been telling you? This task will consume you. You must leave all else behind.
Aeriel drew back, a chill breathing through her. "Leave Irrylath?" she cried.
The voice within her subsided. At last it said, At times we all must give up what we hold most dear for the greater good. I gave up my daughter, all my sorcery, my very life—
"But Irrylath is my husband," Aeriel exclaimed. "We've only just found one another…"
The whole world needs you, Aeriel, the pearl's voice answered sadly. And he is only one man.
New images unfolded before her mind's eye: the planet dying.
"No," Aeriel whispered, "no!"
Anguish racked her. She wished that she might turn away, ignore the knowledge, refuse the gift— but the Ancient sorcery was already inside her, and there was nowhere she might turn.
"Irrylath needs me!" she tried desperately.
I am truly sorry, the pearl's voice murmured, but I have allowed you even these brief hours together at great cost. Time presses. You must not ask more.
Aeriel gazed down at her prince. Gently, she cupped his chin in her hand and, still deeply sleeping, he turned his face as though to seek her touch. An unutterable weight descended upon her. Her breast felt heavy and sore, and she tasted the Witch's heart upon her tongue. Aeriel cradled her husband's cheek, unwilling to let him go.
"He saved me," she whispered, remembering her terror of the flood. "I can't swim. I'd have drowned when the palace fell if he had not…"
Drowned? the voice in her blood exclaimed. Nonsense, child. You can't drown. This new body I gave you is not so easily destroyed.
A thin thread of cold wound through Aeriel. She shivered hard. "What do you mean?" she asked, baffled. "What new body—I don't understand."
The pin, child, the pearl's voice insisted. Did you not guess? The White Witch fashioned it so that it could not be removed without killing you.
Aeriel's eyes widened. Her free hand flew to the place behind her ear where the pin had been. She felt no soreness there, no scar. "But you plucked it out," she gasped. "You pulled it free—"
Yes, and most of you perished in the flash. I had to rebuild the greater part— though I saved all that I could: your heart, your eyes. Your mind and soul, of course.
With a strangled cry, Aeriel snatched her hand from the sleeping prince's cheek, recoiling in horror—not of him, but of herself. In numb dismay, she stared at the body into which she had awakened feeling so strangely new, in the City of Crystalglass, daymonths ago.
"What thing have you made of me?" she gasped. Her eyes returned to Irrylath. He had been a demon once, in Avaric, and she had made him mortal again. She herself had been mortal then—but what was she now? "A monster…" she choked.
No more a monster than the starhorse, Ravenna within her replied, or any other of my Ions. No more than Melkior.
" A golam," the pale girl managed, shuddering.
Yes.
"A clockwork automaton—like the duarough's underground machines…!"
No. Never. A biological construct. You are still flesh, child, not gears and wire.
Staring at herself, Aeriel laughed weakly, dismayed. "A fine match," she repeated softly, thinking of the starhorse, "this new engine for my soul."
She moved her fingers, clenching and opening her hand—but the motion had become accustomed now, no longer felt odd. Something slid along her arm: a tiny chain, scant as spider's silk—so fine she had not noticed it before. She recognized the filament Ravenna had used to fasten the pearl to her brow. It had become entwined about her wrist somehow—when she had handed the pearl to Oriencor?
Distracted, Aeriel shook her head, still staring at her strange, new flesh.
"As like my old form as like…"
The words trailed away.
It is the soul that makes us human, not the flesh. Believe me, child, if I had had another choice
—
"Why did you not tell me?" Aeriel grated furiously. She sat gasping, scarcely able to speak. Outrage and a crushing sense of betrayal strangled her voice.
I did not think that wise, the song in her blood
Rime's End ow answered deftly, dispassionately. I had to conceal my design from your adversary at all costs. If the Witch had read even a glimpse of it in your eyes or so much as suspected what it was you carried, she'd have destroyed you long before you could give her the pearl.