She still doesn't understand, Aeriel thought wearily, in wonder. She doesn't know about the plagues and the destruction. She thinks if she goes there, she will find all Ocea.n.u.s alive. Then, If she knew-if I could show her- would she stop?

"All the Ancients of Ocea.n.u.s perished," Aeriel managed, speaking as plainly as she knew how, "in a great war dozens of thousands of daymonths ago."

Ravenna's daughter laughed again. "Lies! My mother told you that. It's all nonsense. The Ancients are as G.o.ds, are G.o.ds.

And soon I will join their ranks. I have proven myself their equal in sorcery. Soon I will claim the birthright of my Ancient blood and walk at last upon my mother's world."

"There's no one there!" Aeriel searched feverishly for a way to convince her. "Their chariots have long since stopped coming. They no longer speak across the Void."

The White Witch scoffed. "Tired of us. Tired of little minions, little golams, little living toys. Weary-as I am weary-of all the lesser creatures of this world. Weary of you all! Do you think, once I am on Ocea.n.u.s, that I will deign to return ever again to this place? That I will trouble myself to speak with any of you across the Void?"

"They're dead!" Aeriel insisted, despairing, realizing as she did that it was hopeless. No words she could speak would ever persuade Oriencor.

The bitter savor of the Witch's heart lingered even now upon her tongue. She would have spat, if it could have done any good, but the grains had long since dissolved. She could not get the taste out of her mouth. Ravenna's voice came back to her then, or perhaps it was the pearl's murmuring again: Crush the Witch's army. Destroy her darkangels-and without so much as a jolt of surprise, Aeriel understood why she must give the pearl to Ravenna's daughter.

The Ancient jewel enabled its bearer to separate genuine from illusory. Fiery images of Ocea.n.u.s's destruction burned bright in Aeriel's mind, with none of the mistiness of possibility and all the unmistakable clarity of fact. Only in claiming the pearl would Oriencor know, beyond all doubt, that Ocea.n.u.s was dead and the Ancient race no more, that no end could come of killing and abandoning the world. Better to use her vast sorcery to heal it now-it was the only birthright Ravenna's heir would ever know.

Have you ever treasured something, child, a thing so dear you thought you could never give it up-then learned you must? Aeriel understood the Ancient's question now as well, and suddenly all courage failed her. Without the pearl, she would be bereft, robbed forever of its subtle, all-pervading light. It had been a part of her so long that now she could feel its substance in her very bones. Relinquishing it would be like cutting off her own hand, like dying. Doubdess she would die-for without the pearl to keep away the cold, she would swiftly freeze."Ocea.n.u.s is dead," she told the other, with all the certainty and conviction at her command. Rising painfully, Aeriel reached to pull the pearl's chain from her hair. "Take this if you do not believe. Take your mother's gift, Oriencor, and behold for yourself."

Her hand shook. Holding out the pearl to the Witch was the hardest thing she had ever done. Take it, she wanted to cry.

Take it quickly! But all at once, she heard a shout. Startled, the pearl still in her hand, Aeriel turned. Avarclon wheeled and thrashed to a halt just outside the broad, high window of the tower. His hooves clattered against the winterock as he flailed and scrambled, unable to hover easily so near the keep. Irrylath leaned forward, clutching the starhorse's mane.

"Aeriel!" he cried. "Aeriel!"

Oriencor turned from the pale girl to sneer at him. "Begone, traitor," she spat. "You and your Horse and your Blade do not frighten me. Aeriel is mine."

"Monster! Lorelei," Irrylath shouted at her. Turning his gaze once more to Aeriel, he cried urgently, "Has she harmed you?

Give me your hand."

Avarclon's hooves clashed and rang against the frigid stone. His wings, fanning the air, swept and battered against the tower's outer wall. Irrylath strained forward, reaching his free hand for Aeriel, but he could not get close. The window was not large enough for Avarclon to pa.s.s through. Irrylath hacked at the cas.e.m.e.nt relentlessly with the Blade Adamantine. Ignoring him, the White Witch turned away.

"What is it you would give me?" she said contemptuously.

Aeriel gazed back at her. The jewel glimmered in the pale girl's outstretched hand. "That with which your mother entrusted me," she whispered. "The pearl of the soul of the world."

Oriencor tilted her head, eyeing the pearl with new interest. The pale girl nodded.

"Who bears it cannot be fooled by lies."

The other's green eyes studied Aeriel intently suddenly. "Has my mother acknowledged my birthright at last?" she murmured.

"All Ravenna's sorcery is in here," Aeriel told her, "all her knowledge for the running of the world. The making of it cost her life."

Oriencor's eyes grew hungry, bright. "Give it to me, then," she answered, reaching.

"Don't let her touch you!" Irrylath cried. Great chunks of winterock broke and fell away from the Blade. The wall had a gap in it now, still not large enough. Avarclon whinnied and smote with his hooves. "Aeriel," Irrylath insisted. "Come to me. I'll take you away!"

Aeriel looked at him in surprise, at the desperation on his face, the sweat running down from his temples even as his breath burned and steamed like a dragon's in the freezing air. The pearl glowed in her hand.

"It's my inheritance," Oriencor was muttering. "I'll take it with me when I go to Ocea.n.u.s."

"Aeriel," Irrylath called urgently, leaning once more through the battered window. "Come-answer me!"

If he leans any farther, she thought fearfully, he'll fall. His arm stretched out to her, hand open, palm up. A wild longing filled her suddenly as she realized she could go with him. If she went now, she wouldn't die. She could keep the pearl, all its strange sorcery and light-keep it for herself. Irrylath would pluck her away, and they would escape.

"Why do you hesitate?" Oriencor demanded sharply. "Put it into my hand."

Aeriel stared at her, shaking. The Witch was already defeated, all her minions put to flight. But she has not been redeemed.a voice rising unbidden within her prodded. She has not been persuaded that what you say is true. Go with Irrylath, and you will have won a hollow victory. The world will not be healed. The Witch will soon rebuild her power-till you must fight this same battle all over again. Bitterly, Aeriel realized that she must fulfill Ravenna's task, no matter what the cost.

"Come-Aeriel!" her husband cried.

The pearl burned bright as Solstar in her palm.

Much as she longed to, she could not go with Irrylath. Shaking her head, she whispered, "Fare well."

Oriencor had begun to laugh. Aeriel saw Irrylath gazing at her in desperate incomprehension. Above the other's laughter, the rasp of his own breathing and Avarclon's, the thrash of the starhorse's wings and the clatter of his hooves, surely the prince could not have heard her words. But she saw from his expression that he had read the frame of her lips, the shake of her head.

Too late, he cried out, "No!" as Aeriel tore her eyes away from his, and turned to put the pearl in the White Witch's hand.

FOURTEEN.

Flood

The White Witch screamed. Aeriel stood frozen, still touching the pearl. She felt something running out of it and into Oriencor, who stood like a statue, immobile, her mouth fallen open to keen one long, high note that went on and on. Those in barges below and on the battlefield beyond stood halted, turned, staring at the keep. Images had begun to play across the surface of the pearl: pestilence and fire-Ocea.n.u.s destroying itself.

"Dead?" the White Witch screamed. "Dead? How can that be? Not dead. Not dead! Poisoned? Plague? How could they destroy themselves?"

Aeriel could not move, could not take her gaze or her hand away from the pearl. Neither, it seemed, could Oriencor, whose chilling cries continued. Dazed, Aeriel realized that though the pearl was imparting certain knowledge of the Ancients'

fate, Ravenna's daughter was denying it, refusing to believe. Aeriel shook her head. Her ears rang with the Witch's protests. It had never occurred to her that Oriencor might refuse the gift.

"It was only we, only we they caused to war for their pleasure. They can't-they can't be dead! It isn't possible..."

Aeriel felt a stab of sudden fear. She herself had never refused any knowledge she had received through the pearl. She had no idea what would happen to anyone who tried. She had no idea what was happening to Oriencor now. The Witch seemed to be striving to thrust the pearl back into Aeriel's hand. The aroma of Ancient flowers came to her suddenly as a new image gathered itself within the pearl, that of a dusky lady with indigo eyes.

"Daughter," she said quietly, "believe."

Aeriel stared. This image was no misty construct of the future, no vivid memory of the past-it reflected the present: tangible, alive. A living Ravenna gazed at the White Witch from the surface of the pearl.

"No!" the lorelei gasped, recoiling. "I saw your funeral fire-" The Ancientlady shook her head. "That was only my body, child. Some arts of the Ancients you never learned. My inner essence has been translated, that my messenger might bear me to you. All my being is contained within this pearl. The whole of my magic, my very soul-yours, if you will but accept!"

The White Witch's cries rose to shrills and then to shrieks.

"Never!"

Aeriel would have fled, flung her hands over her ears if only she could have moved. The coldness of the Witch swept over and through her as never before, for the pearl no longer gave her any warmth. Ravenna's image watched her daughter with horror and pain.

"Take it back!" shrieked the Witch. "I do not want your sorcery! I have my own sorcery now..."

Fractures appeared in the winterock around them. By means of the pearl, Aeriel felt the hair-thin cracks running the length of the palace, down below the waterline, below even the bottom of the Mere. She glimpsed the figures trapped in the walls of Winterock stirring, awakening, opening their eyes. The whole keep shifted, shuddering, with a low rumbling that rolled under the high, terrible piercing of the Witch's screams.

"Accept, or you are lost!" Ravenna cried urgently. "Use my gift to heal this world..."

Her image reached out to Oriencor, hands outstretched in appeal. Aeriel was aware of Syllva in her Istern barge below sounding her warhorn, signaling retreat. The dark islanders fled the palace terrace to their skiffs and stroked for the far sh.o.r.e.

Erin grasped Pendarlon's mane as he leapt away across the Mere, which had begun to lose its dark opacity. The Witch's creatures writhed and struggled in the lightening waters.

"Believe me, daughter," Ravenna besought her. "My Ancient race and their world are no more."

But Oriencor fought the knowledge of the pearl even now. The palace shuddered again, the floor beneath Aeriel's feet tilting. She heard crashes, like slabs of crystal plunging and shattering.

"It's a lie. A lie-I won't believe it! They can't be dead!"

"Stop," Aeriel tried to tell her. "Stop screaming, or the whole palace will fall."

The other paid her no heed, fingers tightening on the pearl as though she meant to crush it."Daughter, turn back-" Ravenna called desperately.

Then the pearl shattered against Aeriel's hand, and the Ancient's image shattered with it, scattering, vanishing. The Witch's webbed fingers bore down upon Aeriel's. She felt the shards of corundum biting into her flesh. A white mist billowed from the broken sh.e.l.l, cloudlike and full of sparkling fire. It filled the room, enveloping them both. Oriencor wrenched around as if trying to tear free of the pearl, batting at the mist and colored sparks as though they ate at her. Aeriel felt nothing but a slight glimmer, an almost-pleasant glow.

She had cut her thumb upon the broken edge of the pearl. Some portion of the billowing light was running into her through the wound. She breathed it in. It alighted on her skin and entered her pores, crept under her fingernails, filled her ears and hair.

She felt it, fiercely hot, like burning silver in her blood. She, too, cried out then, not with pain, but with surprise.

"You," Oriencor gasped, turning back to her now. Her tone was a rasp, as though the misty light had seared her lungs.

"You! Little sorceress. I curse the day that Irrylath first carried you away, and I curse the hour that ever you came to this keep with your message and your poisonous gift. Undone! All my sorcery undone! By you, my mother's catspaw. Your very innocence your shield."

The White Witch was dying, Aeriel realized. For those who could not accept, the knowledge in the pearl was deadly. Even now, her creatures thrashed, perishing in the disenchanted waters below. Aeriel had never dreamed, not for a moment, that the pearl could harm as well as heal.

"I never meant you ill in giving you the pearl," she cried. Nor could she believe that Ravenna had meant her daughter any harm. "I meant only to show you, to..."

"To make me see?" Oriencor grated, her beautiful bell-like voice now turned to potsherds grinding, to silk rending and metal twisting. "To change me back from what I am into what I was before, a mortal, halfling, Ancient's daughter? Don't you understand?"

Winterock shuddered again, and the floor dropped a quarter of an ell before catching itself. The dead creatures in the lake below were dissolving into noxious mist. The palace shook like something struggling to awake. Both Oriencor and Aeriel staggered, but neither could release the broken, billowing pearl.

"Don't you see?" Oriencor shrilled. "I am no more redeemable than one of my darkangels-one of my true darkangels.

For I am not incomplete, as Irrylath was when you rescued him. I have eaten hearts and drunk blood and drunk souls. My heart is dust. I could not return to what I was even if I wished-and I do not wish it! I want to walk among my peers-I want the Ancients alive on Ocea.n.u.s, and I curse you for taking the hope of that-my only purpose-away."

Her last words were a scream that rent the palace from tower to base. The shock threw Aeriel to her knees. By means of the pearl, she was aware of the now-transparent waters of the Mere pouring into the breaches. She thought of the duaroughs held prisoner in the depths of the palace below and hoped desperately for their deliverance.

"Aeriel! Aeriel!"

Above the din, someone was crying her name, had been crying her name frantically for some time. She turned to see Avarclon bearing Irrylath away from the crumbling palace. Great chunks of winterock sheared off and hurtled down. The prince sat helpless, unable to turn his unbridled steed. Without bit or reins, Irrylath could not compel the Avarclon to wheel and bear him back to Aeriel.

A snarl brought her sharp around. Oriencor was still on her feet, though barely. Her gown was in tatters, her once-white skin, now ashen, was flaking and falling away like curls of burnt paper. Her hair, a nest of tiny, filamentthin snakes, streamed and billowed in a wind Aeriel could not feel. Aeriel shrieked and shrank back even as the Witch's green eyes pinned her.

"I'll have you," she whispered, her ruined voice soft as gravel crushing against itself. "You've destroyed me, but I'll see you undone before me. I'll have your heart, your eyes. Little sorceress, I'll have your soul!"

She reached out one dagger-nailed hand as Aeriel screamed, trying frantically to pull free. Above her in the air, a long way off, she heard Irrylath cry out as well. The White Witch's hand darted toward her. Aeriel shrank, straining, leaned desperately away. She felt Oriencor's talons barely brush her closed eyelids-not enough even to break the skin, but enough to send their cold through her like a knife.

All the light in the world went out. Setting Solstar vanished. Then Aeriel felt the Witch's hand, still holding hers to the broken pearl, fall away into ashes, into dust-just as the palace shuddered for the final time and plunged inexorably down, down toward the roiling Mere below.

Winterock was falling, but it was no longer made of stone. All Oriencor's enchantments must have unraveled at her death, Aeriel thought, almost calmly, as she fell. Water thundered all around her. She could not see, could not breathe, heard only the water's roaring. The pearl-stuff in her blood told her a little of what was happening around her. She wondered when she would reach the hard end of her fall and die.But no end came. The rushing and buffeting went on and on. After an eternity, she realized that though she was falling still, she was no longer plunging straight downward. The palace has collapsed into the lake: the knowledge came to her with eerie clarity. You are being borne along beneath the surface now.

She had no air left in her lungs. The cage of her ribs ached, burning, bursting. Just a while longer, she told herself. Hold out a little longer- though there hardly seemed any point. She could not swim. Deep below the surface of the Mere, water all around, she was keenly aware that as soon as she opened her mouth and drew breath, she would perish.

Perhaps she would faint first and know nothing of dying. Drowning was not such a terrible end after all, she told herself.

She'd always feared it, ever since slipping into a cave pool as a child and being pulled, sick and sputtering, onto the bank by her mistress Eoduin. But there was no bank here and no companion to rescue her.

Her head pounded with the lack of air. Presently she would stop fighting, open her mouth and breathe deep of the pummeling torrent. Then she would be dead. At least the White Witch is dead, too, she thought drowsily, and the world is free of her. The pearlstuff in her blood gave her the certain knowledge of it but could bring her no comfort.

She felt only a crushing sense of failure. She had not fulfilled Ravenna's charge, had not succeeded in converting Oriencor to good. The world would know a brief respite now. But without Ravenna's sorcery, could it ever heal? The pearl was broken, its contents scattered, lost. Still she clung to life, continued to resist the flood. Her own tenacity surprised her. Stop fighting, she told herself, preparing to die. You've failed.

Someone caught her by the hair, pulled her close across the current. The tremendous buffeting all around them had lessened now. It had become a fierce undertow, no longer any downward motion to it. Her companion guided her face to his, put his mouth to hers and gave her breath. Aeriel clutched at his shirt and clung there, drinking in the sweet, magnificent air.

Her head cleared, and suddenly she was fighting again, struggling for breath. The other did not let her break away, did not let her breathe in the white waters of the Mere, much as she wanted to. Air! She needed air. Darkness was everywhere. The icy touch of the Witch's fingers had banished her sight. Her eyes felt useless, frozen, like orbs of winterock.

She could not see who it was that held her. But she felt the strength of his arm around her, his legs stroking for the surface.

She was being borne upward against the current's tow by someone. Someone who swam like a fish. Someone who had been raised by a lorelei. Someone who had swum the Mere every day of his life for ten long years: Irrylath.

It seemed an age before they broke the surface. She gasped the sweet air, but weakly now, half-swooned. Hardly any strength remained in her limbs. She was content to lie unresisting in her husband's arms and let the torrent bear them along.

Miles and miles, she thought dreamily: the flood must be taking them leagues from where the Witch's palace had once stood.

Were the others- those in the barges and upon the sh.o.r.e-safe? She could only hope, wrapped in a darkness devoid of Solstarlight, or Ocea.n.u.slight, or stars. Head pillowed on Irrylath's breast, she slept.

Awareness returned to her just as gradually. Water no longer surrounded them. She no longer felt the rush bearing her along. They had stopped moving. Bruised and waterlogged, she felt herself lying on firm ground, stable and solid, if very soggy. Her garment was sopping, and half her hair-she could feel by the gentle give and tug-lay in water. Someone was speaking her name.