7

Ravenna's Daughter

Aeriel rose from the couch. She wore a long, pale, sleeveless gown. Close-woven and weighty, it was no fabric she recognized. Her yellow wedding sari lay at the foot of the pallet, folded in a tiny square. Impulsively, she reached for it and tucked it away in the bodice of her new gown.

The sudden motion of her arm felt novel, unpracticed. The eerie feeling of newness pervaded her still.

Aeriel shook herself. Gazing again at the glowing white bead in her hand, she realized now that a tiny chain had been attached to it, a filament of silver so fine she could scarcely see it. It teased across her palm like spider silk.

"What have you done to my pearl?" she asked. "It burns now with a different light."

The Ancient Ravenna stood beside the pallet. She looked drawn, infinitely more weary than she had when Aeriel had last seen her. Her eyes were troubled.

"I have made it a vessel, child, into which I mean to put a treasure of inestimable value. This treasure you must guard for me."

As Ravenna bent near, Aeriel became aware once more of the fragrance of strange, otherworldly flowers that pervaded the lady's robe and hair. The other's dusky, long-fingered hands lifted the pearl from her palm. A moment later, Aeriel felt the fine chain fastened behind the crown of her head, the pearl resting incandescent on her brow.

Its white light suffused her vision like a vapor. Aeriel was conscious all at once of things she had not been able to see before, minute cracks in the glass of the wall across the room, every thread in the lady's garment, a mote of dust upon the other's slipper. And the myriad of tiny lines etching the Ancientlady's face.

With a start, Aeriel perceived for the first time how old Ravenna was. Far from obscuring, the misty light of the pearl seemed to sharpen her view. She felt a subtle welling of new strength. That, too, came from the pearl, she realized.

Softly, Ravenna sighed, and Aeriel was aware of the myriad little air currents which that sigh had set in motion. They went spinning away across the room in eddies faint as featherdown.

"You are to be my envoy, child," the Ancient said and reached as though to pluck something from the air. "This, too, you must bear."

Suddenly in her hands, she clasped a naked sword. Silvery, over three feet in length, it lit the room: a ghostly fire wreathed its blade, stopping just short of the broad crossbar. Aeriel stared. The Ancientlady gestured again, and in her other hand a scabbard appeared, scrolled with interlocking etchings. She sheathed the burning glaive, dousing its flame, and as she did so, Aeriel recognized all at once what it was she held.

"That is the silver pin!" she cried, recoiling, cold horror sweeping over her. Ravenna had changed it somehow—increased its size, made it into a sword. Nevertheless, it could only be the pin, that same sliver of silver with which the Witch's black bird had once pinned Aeriel. Somehow, the pearl imparted this knowledge to her. Ravenna nodded.

"Take it, child. It cannot harm you now."

Aeriel stared at the scabbarded blade in the Ancient's hands. She wanted no part of it. But the other did not withdraw the gift, stood holding it out to her still, patiently, waiting. At last, Aeriel reached and ran her hand along the incised scabbard. She had thought at first it was metal, but touching it, she realized that it was wood. The scrollwork running its length seemed to form a pattern, a figure that she could not quite puzzle out, even with the aid of the pearl.

"Is this weapon for Irrylath?" she whispered. "Am I to take it to him?"

The Ancientlady shook her head. "He has the Edge Adamantine. He does not need another blade."

Through the scabbard, the glaive felt faintly warm. It trembled slightly, like the tremor of a moth's wing, like something alive.

"Is the sword for me, then?" breathed Aeriel.

The Ancient shook her head. "You are but the bearer. No, child. In the end, neither of these gifts is for you."

Reluctantly, Aeriel took hold of the sword's grip. Her hand shook. The blade felt oddly light, seemed to have no weight at all. It balanced in her hand easily as she drew it from the sheath, hummed softly as it pivoted, burning, on the air. She sheathed it, and the sword sang and whispered, ever so softly, a troubling song.

Aeriel set the sword down on the pallet beside her. "To whom am I to give this?"

"Give it to your shadow," Ravenna replied.

Aeriel gazed at her, perplexed. She had no shadow. The temple fire in Orm had burned her shade away. "Lady, I don't understand."

The other smiled ruefully. "Forgive me," she said, "if I speak in rimes, but all will become apparent to you. I promise."

Aeriel fingered the pearl upon her brow. It gleamed, enriching her sight. "Am I to give this up as well?" she asked. "To whom?"

"It is a gift for the world's heir, for my successor—the daughter who must come after me and reign in my stead."

Aeriel stood baffled, helpless to unriddle the other's words. Who was this daughter of whom she spoke? Lightly, Ravenna touched the pearl, and Aeriel felt the touch, strangely magnified, glancing through her like a dart. The pale girl shivered.

"You said you had made my pearl a vessel," she began. "What do you mean for it to hold?"

"Everything," the Ancient said. "All the knowledge of what runs the world, that which I have been gathering these countless years, searching the City's vast libraries and stores before they rot rusting away and spoil into dust."

Her weary features grew serene then, and for a long moment, utterly untroubled.

"The soul of the world must go into that pearl," she continued. "All my sorcery, with which my daughter must heal this sorely beleaguered land, that all will not fall into ruin when I am gone."

"But the Witch," Aeriel protested. "The Witch would undo everything you say! The lorelei is robbing the very life from our land with every drop of water that she steals. A perishing drought rages. She has captured the duaroughs, who work the world's engines belowground, and she has loosed her darkangels upon the kingdoms above…"

Gently, the Ancientlady took her hand and drew her back to sit upon the pallet. "Peace. I know it well. Was it not I that foretold the coming of the Witch?"

Aeriel subsided, sat gazing at the other. Slowly she nodded and felt the dusky lady press her hand.

With infinite sadness, Ravenna told her.

" She is my daughter, Aeriel. It is to her that you must give the pearl."

"She… the White Witch is an Ancient?" Aeriel stumbled, utterly dismayed. All the world had thought Ravenna the last of the race of Oceanus. The Ancientlady shook her head.

"No, child. She was born here, on your world." Abruptly, Ravenna rose. "What do you know of my people?"

"Little, nothing," Aeriel managed. "In Terrain, where I was raised, we called you the Unknown-Nameless Ones."

The Ancientlady gave a short, painful laugh. "Truly, has our memory crumbled so far?" she said. Then softly, "Well, perhaps it is a good thing."

Silence then. The misty light of the pearl made Aeriel aware of every wrinkle in the coverlet, every mote in the air, every score upon the scabbard of the burning sword, but nothing the other said was clear.

Reeling, she struggled to collect herself.

"I know your people came into the world long ago, from Oceanus. That the land was dead, and you gave it life. That you made us and all the herbs and living creatures. That you were like mothers and fathers to us, and shared your great wisdom with us, as much as we could understand, and showed us how to live well and justly, caring for us always…"

Again Ravenna's bitter laugh. "Child, child," she said. "It is not so. We did come from Oceanus long ago, and we did create the living things upon this world. But hardly out of love—for luxury. For our own dalliance. We never shared our knowledge with you. We hoarded it and kept you as ignorant as we could."

The Ancientlady turned suddenly and shook her head, pacing.

"This world was our pleasure garden," the dark lady continued, "and we thought of you, the inhabitants we had fashioned for it, not as our children, but as decorations. Chattels. Slaves."

Coming nearer, she knelt again before Aeriel, speaking urgently. At a sweep of Ravenna's hand, the light in the chamber dimmed. The sword whispered. The pearllight glowed. Once more the colored beads of fire darted, but not upon the surface of the pearl this time. They were within her own mind now, swirling and shimmering, put there by the pearl. With a gasp, Aeriel touched the jewel on her brow and watched the images dancing before her inner eye.

"We are a very old race, Aeriel," the Ancient said, "immensely learned, but far from wise. Once our chariots traveled to the last reaches of heaven. But that was long ago. This moon, your world, was deserted then, dead—until we took it upon ourselves to make it habitable. We created vapors for us to breathe, peoples, animals, plants. Members of our race could spend dozens of hours abroad before needing to return to the Domes. And so from across the heavens we came, to trifle in our garden."

The pearl showed Aeriel everything Ravenna described: the great machinery manufacturing air, the world seeded, the first small creatures released.

"Eventually, the ecology of this world began to evolve on its own. Scientists came then, walking among you and studying your kind. I was such a one. But I dallied, too—to my bitter regret. We all dallied. Coundess of your people are our descendants, many generations removed. In my folly, I bore a daughter and raised her here, in NuRavenna, as one of my own race."

A sigh of despair. Aeriel studied the pearl-made image of Ravenna, centuries younger, cradling a fair-skinned infant in her arms. The Ancientlady groaned.

"I should have done what my fellows did with their own halfüng progeny: sent her out into the world to become some great heroine or queen. Instead, selfishly, I kept her, promising that one day she would return home with me. A lie— though one I hoped, desperately, to somehow make true. But that goal proved unattainable. No creature born here can survive on Oceanus. The pull of our world would crush you to bits. Yet I allowed my daughter to believe herself wholly of my Ancient race and that Oceanus was her birthright. Again and again I delayed my return, postponing the inevitable moment when I must reveal to her the truth."