The Darkangel Read online

  The old nurse clucked, patted and stroked her hair for a while. Gradually, Aeriel's weeping quieted. She clung to Bomba and felt no consolation. The old nurse settled herself a bit more comfortably, sighed and drifted off into sleep again. The women spun on, unconcerned.

  The climb up the cliffs was steep and Aeriel was out of breath, for she was hurrying.

  Solstar had been barely peering over the rim of the western deserts when she had slipped away from the others at their morning prayers in the courtyard of the syndic's house: praying to the Unknown-Nameless Ones, they who had first fallen from the sky in fire to quicken this, a then-dead world, the moon of Oceanus, into life. Little was known of them, and they were not much spoken of.

  Aeriel quickened her pace along the brittle mountain trail. No one had seen her leave the village. She carried only the long-knife she had stolen from the kitchen and a small sack of provisions. She did not know how long she might have to wait, but she would wait—

  wait until the icarus came, or the food ran out and she died. Surely he will come, she thought, if only I wait long enough. He must come.

  "Hear me, O Unknown-Nameless Ones," she panted, padding rapidly along the narrow, rising path. She had never prayed before, but she had heard the syndic do it, offering up the house prayers each morning and the village prayers each night. "Hear my words,"

  prayed Aeriel. "Let there be justice for the killing of my mistress and my friend. Not any of her family seeks to avenge her...."

  As I would, thought Aeriel, pausing for breath. Her head was spinning from her haste.

  Let them hear me for Eoduin's sake—I myself am of no consequence. The Unknown-Nameless Ones granted few prayers, she knew, and generally only personages of great importance dared petition them. She eyed the star-strewn sky uneasily, hoped fervently no blue-white lightning would dart down to silence her presumption. It was not courage that had prompted her to make this climb, only despair. The slave fairs would be held next day-month in Orm.

  "Answer this entreaty of one small slave, O Ancient Ones," she cried into the thinning air, "and I care not what becomes of me after." What did her life matter anymore? Eoduin was dead. "I will go quiet into new slavery, or dedicate myself at Temple to your service, or spill my blood on the altar-cliffs in sacrifice to you—what you will."

  All three prospects terrified her, but she made herself speak the words. Surely the gods would have pity on one so desperate? The dark, vast sky above loomed empty but for stars. She gasped for breath and realized then that tears were streaking her cheeks. Her jaw hurt from having been clenched a long time, hard.

  She scrubbed at the tears angrily, shoved away from the cliffside against which she had rested, and hurried on up the path. "I'm coward enough without weeping," she muttered.

  She gripped the long-knife tighter in one hand. But let him come, she prayed, silent again. Only let him come.

  Solstar was a few degrees into the star-littered sky by the time she reached the summit.

  The air was thin, cold. There was no wind. She put her provisions down and knelt-sat on the hard, hot rock. The sun rose, slowly—half a degree every hour. The constellations turned, slowly. The waning Planet did not move, sat motionless in the heavens like a great, slow-blinking eye.

  When the sun was four degrees into the sky, Aeriel ate a handful of bedchel seed and took a sip of water from the flask. When Solstar was six degrees above the plain, she ate again and stood up. Her legs were stiff and sore; one foot prickled numbly. She paced back and forth over the crumbling rock to get the circulation back. Then she sat down again and waited, dozed, ate, and waited again. He did not come.

  The sun was sixteen hours into the heavens when she discovered the cracked mouth of her water flask had leaked half its contents into the thirsty rock. Solstar had climbed another twelve degrees when she drank the last of the water and threw the flask away.

  The sun was thirty-six degrees into the heavens when she ate the last bed-chel seed. Her mouth felt tight and dusty, and she was hungry still. The stars wheeled slowly on. Her thirst and hunger grew until she felt dry and hollow as a reed. Solstar was halfway to its zenith when the vampyre came.

  He came out of the northwest, as before, but this time she saw him from a long way off.

  At first she thought it was just hunger making the stars wink out occasionally, but no. She could see more clearly now that she concentrated, now that he was closer, that this small but growing shadow across the stars was more than a simple figment of her own fatigue.

  He was still far, and all she could make out clearly of him was the churning of his dozen wings against the dark sky and the faint, eerie glow of his garments.

  He came very rapidly, as before. Aeriel stood up, shaking a little. For a moment, she was seized with the overriding desire to run, hide, escape lest he see her. No, let him pass, she almost prayed; let him fly on. But there was no mistaking that he must see her, now that she was standing, and no mistaking that his course was taking him directly to her.

  She held the knife up in front of her in both her hands. He alighted on the cliff's edge, only paces from her. She felt the wind of his alighting and shuddered, but stood fast. His wings stilled, yet stayed spread. He draped and folded them about him in such a way she could see little of his figure and nothing of his face.

  "You have been waiting for me," he said. His voice was startlingly quiet, clear, even beautiful— like a deep, full-ringing bell. The thinness of the air did not seem to affect it at all.

  "Yes," said Aeriel, and her voice was nothing —a muted squeak. She gathered herself.

  "Yes, I have been waiting for you," she cried out boldly, and could barely hear the words herself.

  "I knew that you would be here when I returned," the darkangel said.

  "Then you would have done better not to have returned," she shouted, softly. She wondered what manner of hideous creature stood behind those wings.

  "Do you mean to kill me?" his voice asked calmly, reasonably. The vampyre's wings rustled but did not part.

  Hatred welled in Aeriel, and she cried, "Yes. You have taken Eoduin, and I will kill you for it."

  "I chose her as my bride," he said. "It is a great honor."

  "It is death," spat Aeriel, rage choking her.

  She heard the vampyre sigh behind his wings. "After a fashion, I suppose, but that is small enough price."

  "And how many now have you wrung the price from, icarus?" she demanded. "How many maidens have you stolen for brides?"

  Silence followed for a moment, as though the darkangel were thinking.

  "I think I have had twelve-and-one brides in as many years," he said, then laughed. "I am a young vampyre."

  Aeriel gripped the haft of her long-blade tighter and started toward him.

  "Stop," he cried, his voice of a sudden commanding and stern. "You have not the power, nor the will."

  Then he opened his wings, and Aeriel found she could not move for wonder. Before her stood the most beautiful youth ever she had seen. His skin was pale and white as lightning, with a radiance that faintly lit the air. His eyes were clear and colorless as ice.

  His hair was long and silver, and about his throat he wore a chain: on fourteen of the links hung little vials of lead.

  He was smiling at her slightly, a cruel smile that even in its cruelty was beautiful. Aeriel felt her knees buckling. The vampyre caught her as she fell and seized the knife from her.

  He clasped her to him. His body was colder than shadow, so cold she felt the warmth of her own body running away into his while his own cold invaded her. The air around him was bitter chill, smelled heavy and sweet as licorice. She felt his great wings buffeting around her suddenly, and realized they must be flying.

  "Where are you taking me?" she tried to say, but he was holding her too tightly for her to speak, even to breathe. She felt the windless emptiness above the atmosphere, felt the vampyre's dozen wings straining in the void. We must be among the stars by this tim
e, she thought vaguely, before the chill and airless dark intruded on her thoughts, and she lost consciousness.

  Her first awareness was of being able to breathe again. He had relaxed his grip. The atmosphere was rare yet, thin enough to make her gasp—but she could breathe. The darkangel's great wings still beat about her; she sensed the buoyancy of flight. And she was cold still, so very cold.

  They were descending; she felt it—the rhythm of his wings had changed, and in the distance below, she heard a thin wailing, keening, almost screaming. It grew louder and more terrible as they drew near. Shriller it became, more raucous: hoots and shrieks and howls of hysterical laughter—until they were hovering in the midst of it. The buffeting of his wing-beats grew so fierce then that Aeriel half swooned. The screaming swelled and rose. The icarus touched down and stilled his wings. He let go of Aeriel and she dropped in a heap at his feet.

  "Get up," he said.

  Aeriel raised her head and looked around her. They were on the terrace of a tower, a tremendously high tower of cold grey stone: it sweated in the light. A spiral stair twisted up the central core a turn or two above the level of the terrace to the base of the pole where the standard flew.

  It must have been woven of witch's breath, thought Aeriel, so light it was that even the seldom wind at such a height could lift it, send it streaming back from the pole in long furls.

  Gargoyles sat on the battlements—lean they were and the same hideous damp grey as the stone. They looked at her with hollow eyes and rattled their silver chains. They had wings of bats or wings of birds, most of them, and licked their beaks or teeth with forked and double tongues. Two paced restlessly before their platforms; others whined or picked their claws, or groomed their mangy fur or feathers, or lizard skin, or scales.

  The nearest one snapped at Aeriel. She drew away from them, pressed closer to the vampyre, but he moved off from her toward the hole in the floor where the spiral steps entered the tower.

  "Come," he said. "They'll not attack you while you are with me, but you must not come here alone."

  Aeriel looked first at him, at his beautiful bloodless face, his colorless eyes and long silver hair. She had never seen any living being so fair as the darkangel. She glanced back at the starved, ragged gargoyles. They had a sharp stench to them, like rotted cheese, or buttermilk. Aeriel could think of no creature foul enough to compare with them.

  The icarus paused gracefully at the steps; all his moves were grace. "Do you come?"

  Aeriel turned back to him. "I am to be your bride," she said, not questioning. The certainty of it overwhelmed her.

  The darkangel looked at her then and laughed, a long, mocking laugh that sent the gargoyles into a screaming, chattering frenzy. "You?" he cried, and AeriePs heart shrank, tightened like a knot beneath the bone of her breast. "You be my bride? By the Fair Witch, no. You're much too ugly."

  Aeriel was silent for a long moment. "Then why have you brought me here?" she asked at last.

  "You are to be my wives' tirewoman," he said, then turned and began to descend the stairs. Aeriel got to her feet but did not follow. The gargoyles shrieked and strained at their shackles. The vam-pyre halted after a moment and turned to her again. "Do you come, girl—what is the matter with you?"

  "I am not to be your bride," said Aeriel.

  The vampyre snorted; his lip curled with contempt. "And why in this world should I have to do with you? Certainly you can see your looks are hardly worthy of one such as I.

  Look at yourself—there is color to your skin, and one can see the blood in your veins.

  You are scant and scrawny; your hair is yellow, and those fig-green eyes... There, have I said enough?"

  Aeriel looked at his flawless white skin that had no delicate tracery of blue veins beneath, his hair fine as filament, and platinum fair. Her own skin and hair were dark by contrast.

  The icarus continued: "However, despite that you are hideous to look at, I have brought you here—you can spin and weave, can you not?—to serve as my wives' tiring woman.

  Are you not delighted?" When Aeriel did not respond, the darkangel frowned and folded his arms. "Girl, I do not think you fully appreciate the honor I do you."

  Aeriel came then, beneath the hard gaze of his disapproving eyes—the menace of his brooding made her flinch—and together they descended the tower into the keep.

  The castle was immense, and empty. The vampyre led her through room on room of cold grey stone, rooms that contained nothing but an occasional piece of furniture—a carved alabaster couch beside a fine silk tapestry, perhaps, and that was all. The icarus looked about him with satisfaction. Aeriel gazed about her in dismay.

  "Yes," he said. "They took most of it with them when they left. This used to be a king's palace, did you know it? But the king's son died young and his father grew old without an heir. Then I came when he was dying and the land had no champion to defend it, so the queen took her people far to the east, across the Sea-of-Dust to found a new kingdom.

  This is my palace now."

  Aeriel followed the darkangel through the empty rooms and empty halls. "Have you many servants?" she made bold to say at last, for she hardly felt fear of him now, only a vast sense of insignificance.

  "There is only you," he answered. "I had another tiring maid before you, but she tried to run away. She did not get far across the plain. I caught her by the hair and strangled her, then threw her to my gargoyles. If you try to leave here, I will do the same to you."

  Aeriel nodded. After a time, she murmured faintly, "And what is to be my room, my lord?"

  "Any room," he told her. "Find one that suits you and take it."

  "And where are your apartments, lord?" she asked.

  "I have none," he said. "There is only my bedchamber, there, and it is locked."

  He gestured to the right. Through an arched doorway, Aeriel saw another chamber, at the end of which stood a straight stair leading up to a landing. She caught only a glimpse of an ornately carved door, standing shut at the head of the stair, before the icarus turned down a hallway and Aeriel had to hurry to follow.

  He nodded back over his shoulder toward his chamber door without turning. "I sleep but once a year."

  He led her down corridors and stairwells, through the lower floors, the washing room—

  long dry and deserted, the storage rooms where no supplies were kept, and finally the kitchen of bare shelves where no herbs or onions hung drying from the ceiling beams.

  "But what shall I eat?" cried Aeriel, dismayed.

  The vampyre shrugged. "You must find your own food; the other ones always did. There is a garden—perhaps you will find something there. I, you may know, sup but once in a twelvemonth."

  "On your wedding night," said Aeriel.

  The darkangel stood fiddling with the leaden chain about his neck. "I have shown you enough of the castle," he announced suddenly. "Now you must meet my wives."

  He led her up a winding stair, down a long narrow hall to a little door at the very end. It opened onto a tiny windowless room in which were twelve-and-one emaciated women.

  Some stood in corners or crouched, leaning back against the walls. Some crawled slowly on hands and knees; one sat and tore her hair and sobbed. Another paced, paced along a little of the far wall. All screamed and cowered at the entrance of the vampyre.

  "Yes, they are a sight," he said to Ariel, "though they were all beautiful when I married them. I do not think the climate here agrees with them. Wives," he said, "this is your new servant. Do not encourage her to run away, or I shall have to kill her as I did the last."

  The women looked at Aeriel with caverns where their eyes should have been. Their starved cheeks were translucent in the lamplight, the skin of their faces pulled so tight Aeriel could see the imprint of their teeth through their lips. Their arms looked like birds'

  legs—skin on bones with no flesh in between. They cringed; they trembled. One of them moaned: her voice was hollow. Their hair was all coars
e and dry as blighted marshgrass.

  These are wraiths and not women, Aeriel thought suddenly—the soulless and undying dead.

  "You must spin for them," the vampyre was saying, "and weave—nothing heavy, you understand. They are very fragile. Wool or even silk weights them down so they cannot walk, but must crawl about the floor like crippled beggars. I do not come to view them often, but when I do, I expect them to appear presentable."

  "Not wool or silk," said Aeriel, watching the wraiths; "then what shall I weave?"

  "You must find it yourself—something grows in the garden perhaps." He half-turned away, as if to leave.

  "Which one of them is Eoduin?" said Aeriel, her voice fallen to a whisper as she realized one of these creatures must once have been her friend.

  The darkangel shrugged. "Surely you do not expect me to remember which one is which?" He left her standing in the middle of the room.

  Aeriel ran after him a pace or two. "Where are you going, my lord?" she cried.

  He turned and said impatiently. "What business is that of yours? You are but a servant, and I have spent enough time on you."

  "But... what if I should need to find you?" stammered Aeriel.

  "Why should you need to find me?" said the vampyre. "Your duties do not concern me."

  "But...," groped Aeriel, "I shall be all alone."

  "Alone?" cried the icarus. "You have twelve mistresses and one." Then he turned and strode off down the hall, leaving Aeriel in the room with no windows, and the wraiths.

  3. The Duarough

  "We will not hurt you," said one of the wraiths. "We cannot," said another. "Most of us are too weak to stand."

  "It is the weight of these garments," another said, or perhaps it was the first again. They all moved about constantly, rocking or pacing, before and behind her. Aeriel could not keep her eye on them all. And all of them had the same face, save that some were more or less withered than others.