The Darkangel

When aeriel opened her eyes, all was as it had been a few moments before. The icarus lay pale and still on his crumpled black wings. The thirteen wraiths stood wan and motionless around him. Aeriel arose at last and walked past them to the vampyre. She knelt beside him and unfastened the necklace from his throat.

His flesh was colorless and cold as death. Her hands were shaking. At first she feared to see him rot and fall to ashes at her touch, but he breathed on. And then she fully expected him to awake from feigned sleep and strangle her, but he did not stir. She lifted the leaden chain in her hand and unhooked the first vial from its link.

She turned and held it up. "Whose soul is this?" she asked.

One of the wraiths came forward - perhaps the most bent and wasted of them. "It is mine," she said, her voice so thin it sounded like little more than wind. "You must help me."

The wraith's emaciated fingers closed about Aeriel's hand. She helped the creature raise the leaden vessel to her lipless mouth and drink. For such a tiny vial, it seemed she drank a very long time. When she was done, the wraith stepped back, but she was no longer a wraith. She now had eyes where only hollows had been, and though her body was as starved and fleshless as before, there was now an energy about it, almost a glow.

"My name is Marrea," said the creature who no longer was a wraith. Her voice was soft and full, very beautiful. "I was a daughter of a goose-herd in the forested hills of Bern. I was tending my flocks in the meadows one morning when the darkangel seized me."

Then before she had quite spoken the last of it, her body fell away into dust; her bones crumbled and settled in a heap - yet still she stood there before Aeriel. Or rather, it was another being that stood in her place, a being made of a soft yellow light that retained a human shape. The shift Aeriel had woven for her draped softly about her, but the outline of her form shone faintly through. She looked to Aeriel like a beautiful young woman.

"See me as I was before," the spirit said. "Now that you have given me back my soul, I have no more use for my body. My heart and my lifeblood are gone irreplaceably: I am no longer of this world, so I must leave body behind. But this" -  she touched her kirtle -

"which you have given me, I will retain, for love is immortal, and eternal, and will not wither in the endless deeps of heaven."

The spirit rose. Her image grew thinner, more transparent, and her soft light diffused. She ascended more swiftly as Aeriel watched. Her garment rippled gently in some wind that Aeriel could not feel. The spirit receded to the upper reaches of the night sky. Her light grew smaller and farther away until it seemed no more than a fallow star in a dark swatch of the heavens where no other stars burned.

Aeriel gazed at the now-motionless point of light a long moment before she could bring herself back to the task at hand. The other wraiths already were moaning and clamoring for their souls. Aeriel gave out the vials one by one, tnen watched as one by one the mummy-women drank, and their bodies fell away, leaving only the bright images of their souls. And in turn each told her name, and where she was from, and what she had been in life, and how the vampyre had taken her. Slowly, they ascended.

Then Aeriel gave to the last wraith the last vial but one. And when the creature drank, and her body fell to dust, Aeriel recognized the spirit's features, though they were made of golden light. "Eoduin," she cried softly. "Eoduin."

"Yes, companion," the spirit said; her voice was lovely, bell-like in tone, but still recognizably Eoduin's. "You were my servant once, and I was careless of you, even as I was jealous of your fortitude."

"I have no fortitude," Aeriel whispered.

The golden maiden smiled. "When the icarus took me, did you not go to avenge me? As a frjend would have done, and not a slave."

"I was desperate," she protested softly. "I was in despair. Your father would have sold me...."

But the other spoke on, still smiling. "And when you found me among those others, a wretched, mindless wraith, still you came to us, though we were hideous to look at. You did not know which one I was, and so you loved us all for my sake. Now you have felled the icarus and returned to us our souls. Thirteen stars will burn bright in heaven for you, Aeriel."

So saying, she rose into the sky. Looking up, Aeriel saw fixed stars in the patch of heavens that had formerly been dark. As she watched, that last of the spirits joined the constellation: a perfect, tilted circle like a crown, or maidens dancing -  save that one spot was empty. That will be my place, thought Aeriel, when I depart the world. She looked down at the last, empty vial on the leaden chain. And there my soul would have rested, had I let the vampyre take me.

She laid the heavy chain down and gazed at the unconscious darkangel. He lay absolutely still, save for his quiet, shallow breaths. Helpless now, and unaware, he looked more pathetic than terrible, more wasted than ugly. Aeriel touched the unbleeding and unhealing slashes on his shoulder and cheek. The awful coldness of his flesh numbed her fingertips.

A great white light filled the darkened chamber. Aeriel spun around. The duarough stood in the doorway with a torch of rushlight in his hand. Aeriel wondered how long it had been since sundown - no more than half an hour surely - only the time it had taken the duarough to make his way up from the caverns and through the long, twisting halls of the castle to this room. The little man was puffing and blowing when he entered, so she knew he must have hurried. Aeriel wondered that she had not heard him coming.

"Ah, daughter," he panted, "I see you are quite well, so perhaps there was not need for all the haste I made. I" - he had to pause for breath -  "I heard a scream."

Aeriel turned her face away, touched her wrist. "He caught hold of me," she murmured.

"But the wraiths saved me."

"The wraiths?" the little mage mused. "So they proved to be of use at last - and you did not need the dagger after all." He puffed a sigh, folded his hands, nodded. "Well, I am glad."

Aeriel glanced back at him. "Your poison has done its work," she said, surprising herself with the stiffness of her tone. "What was it?"

"Poison?" snorted the duarough as he seated himself. "Daughter, it was hardly that. It was life, health, warmth - call it what you will. It is in all plants, in the nectar of hornflowers, in animals: it is the dram that flows from the wellspring of Aiderlan, and infuses all the waters of the world. Even in the Dead Lake of the lorelei there is a little of the water of life, elsewise that mere would be truly dead, devoid even of her nearly dead creatures.

Even she is yet a little alive." He indicated the fallen icarus. "As is he. But he is mostly dead, and it is the deadness in him that rejects the vigor of that dram."

The duarough took a quiet survey of the room before eyeing the little heaps of ashes on the floor.

"Well," he said, "I see you've done with the vampyre's wives. I must say, I'm glad to see the last of that lot. All that wailing and moaning -  one could scarcely think___"

"Here is the knife," said Aeriel. She drew it out from beneath her bridal gown and lifted the chain from around her neck. She had spoken more to quiet him than from need, for he could plainly see it, shining brighter than his torch.

The duarough's manner was the same as always - brisk and talkative - but just now it grated on her terribly. It seemed an abomination for him to run on so lightly in face of the deed they were about to do. And she knew full well that diey must kill the icarus. A season past, on the steeps of Terrain, she had relished the thought, but now it sickened her, for she no longer feared him, nor loathed him, nor worshipped him as she had done before.

She felt a curious kind of pity for him now, a pity for his present helplessness, and an almost-longing for his former might. He had been terrible and evil, yes, but also very beautiful. Now they were going to destroy him - as he had meant to destroy the wraiths, this world, and her, Aeriel reminded herself. Yet the memory of his beauty haunted her, and she felt suddenly overwhelmed with a sorrow she did not entirely understand.

Aeriel held out the knife to the mage. "You do it," she told him. "I cannot."

The duarough rose and came over to her, eyed her quizzically. "Daughter," he said, "only the children of the upperlands-under-the-sky can wield that blade and strike true. It was not made for the hand of a son of earth."

"Of course," said Aeriel, softly. "I should have known."

Bitterness and misery mixed with the pity in her breast as she took the dagger more firmly in her grasp. It seemed to have no weight at all. She closed both hands around its haft, glanced from the fallen icarus to her companion.

"Give me some word to bolster me in this," she begged him.

"Plunge the blade into his heart," the duarough said, "and it is done."

There was no rancor in his voice, no malice at all. Nonetheless, she was filled with disgust at his words and at herself, for she knew she must obey them. She gazed down at the darkangel; he lay there yet, as still as death - and yet, she knew he lived. She raised the blade above his breast and tried to close her eyes.

She knew she could have done it, had only she shut her eyes - shut out the light of the lamps, and stars, and the duarough's torch, and blade -  saying, "For Eoduin," or "This is not killing; he is already dead," or "This is not the darkangel; it is someone I do not know." But she could neither close her eyes, nor speak, nor move. She held the dagger bright above him for a very long time before she lowered it slowly and laid it on the floor.

"I cannot," she said. "I cannot kill him."

"But you must," the duarough admonished gently, tentatively, almost as if he were testing her.

"There is nothing that I must do," snapped Aeriel, more fiercely than she meant. She made her voice a little quieter, but no less firm. "I am free to make this choice, and I choose he shall not die."

They sat in silence for a very great while. She could not turn to face him, but she knew he was looking at her, studying her. She knew that he had trusted her, depended on her to do this thing. She had even convinced herself that it might be possible after all, only to discover now, at this last moment, that she could not. She had failed the mage and herself. One warm tear slid down her cheek and yet she felt, strangely, no great sorrow.

"What, then, do you propose to do with him?" the little man inquired.

"I..." Aeriel drew breath and was surprised to find it ragged. "I do not know. I want..."

She was trying to say something, she knew, but was not even sure herself quite what it was.

"Tell me what you want," her companion said.

Aeriel bit her lip and touched the fallen icarus' face. The icy chill of his cheek numbed her hand and she did not care. "The lorelei has drunk his blood, hardened his heart," she answered softly. "He is as much her prisoner as the wraiths were his. As I pitied them once, must I not pity him now? My heart..." Her breaths were coming so short now she had to pause. "My heart goes out to him. I want..." She stumbled, sat a moment, silent. "I wish that I might save him from the witch as I have saved the wraiths from him."

She turned to face the duarough now and to her surprise found him eyeing her with the barest trace of smile on his lips. She feared he was mocking her.

"He is monstrous and evil," she cried, despairing; "I know it well. But his soul is still his own  - there is that final spark of good in him." Her throat felt tighter than she had ever known. She dropped her eyes. "He is not quite a vampyre yet."

The little mage laughed softly then, and Aeriel realized it was not mockery, but approval lit his eye. "It is that spark, then, daughter," he said, "that you must seize and kindle, if you are to save him."

Aeriel looked up at him. "What do you mean?" she said.

"The icari are made, not born," the duarough replied. "He was not always this way. He was a child of mortals once___"

"You mean the witch's doing may be undone?" cried Aeriel. "He might become a man again?" The prospect astonished her. She had feared it all vain hope and dreaming.

The magician nodded judiciously. "Perhaps," he told her, "and perhaps."

She felt a surge of anger in her breast. "Why did you not tell me this before?" she heard herself demanding. "I might have killed him needlessly."

The duarough shook his head, smiling. "No, child. I do not think there was ever any danger of that. And I did not tell you before because nothing could have come of it. To heal requires true love, and you did not love him before, though now I see you are beginning to."

Aeriel stared at the mage and her anger cooled, slowly, into astonishment. How could he say she loved the vampyre? The thought had never occurred to her. Then it began to dawn in her mind, slow as sunrise, that perhaps she did in some ways love him. She admired the beauty, the magnificence, the grace and power that had once been his. But if this were love, it was not blind, for she still abhorred his cruelty, his cowardice, his impatient and imperious self-interest.

She gazed at the duarough and said, "Yes. I think that I do love him in a way, and I do not want him to perish." She turned to look down at the fallen darkangel now. "I want to save him. Tell me how."

But the little mage of Downwending said, "I cannot. My magic has no province here. The cure must come from you."

Aeriel gazed at him, uncomprehending. "I have skill at neither medicine nor magic," she said.

"It is not required," the duarough told her. "Think, child; think what ails him!"

Aeriel looked down at the pale face of the vampyre. "He has no blood," she said. "The water witch has drunk it all. He cannot live again as a mortal without blood."

"Then you must find him some," the magician said.

"But the only living blood in the world," insisted Aeriel, "flows in the veins of living creatures. I cannot kill one to save another."

"True," the duarough replied.

"Then it is hopeless," cried Aeriel, filled with rage at her own helplessness and the injustice of this pass. Her eyes burned with tears.

"Cup your hands and catch the tears," the mage instructed. He reached to bring her hands together in a bowl, and even as he spoke the falling tears turned to blood that welled up and filled her hands in a moment.

"But I thought you said your magic...," Aeriel whispered, staring.

"Oh, this is not my doing," the duarough said. "Greater magics than mine are afoot in this chamber, where blade and cup and dram are met with love such as yours. All lies in your hands now, daughter. I am no more than your aide."

Aeriel stared at the living blood brimming her cupped hands, and then at the darkangel.

"But this will not be enough," she said. "It cannot be."

"It will suffice," the duarough said. "As one drop of your charity spins endless thread, so one tear of your true love will make enough for this." Then he tilted her hands so that the blood fell in a thin stream to the vampyre's white breast, and there disappeared like rain into a thirsty earth. Aeriel poured for a long, long time before her hands were empty of blood. By that time, color had come into the vampyre's skin. He was no longer deathly white. No spot or stain was left upon his breast, and Aeriel's hands were as clean and dry as before. She watched as traces of blood arose to fill the slashes on his face and shoulder.

She gazed at the duarough in wonderment. "You are a wizard," she told him, "and a great one."

But again the duarough shook his head. "I have done nothing, child," he told her. "Nor could I, had I tried. Mages cannot work everything. Only the quality of your mercy could have accomplished - " He cut himself off abruptly, then, with a glance at the darkangel.

"But haste," the little man cried, "or he dies. You have given him his lifeblood back, but his heart is still lead. The dram he drank will sustain him for a little, but not long."

She caught in her own breath sharply as she realized that already the icarus' breaths were fading.

"What must I do?" said Aeriel, but the duar-ough did not reply. The moment she sat gazing at him seemed to last many heartbeats, though she knew in truth it spanned but two. Then she resolved herself and spoke. "The cure must come from me, you said. Very well; I have not come this far only to see him die. He must have a heart of flesh to live, and if it must be mine, I'll freely give it."

She did not look at the duarough again, to see if he would try to stay her. Giving him no time to intercede, or even speak, she reached for the dagger. Quickly, but very carefully, she drew the bright blade down the vampyre's breast - so keen was its edge that no blood sprang to the wound. His flesh parted, and amid the folds she found his heart - a cold, hard, dreary lump of lead.

She lifted it out and set it down, a dry, bloodless, heavy metal weight, then took up the blade again and turned it to her own breast. The shining blade was so keen she felt no sting, only heat like the light of Solstar. Lifting her own heart from her breast, she felt only emptiness remain. She laid her heart of flesh within his open breast, then folded his flesh over again, where it joined without a seam.

She felt tired, very spent - yet at the same time, there was a curious lightness to her limbs. The colors of the room faded. She could not seem to keep her eyes open. Her breaths were growing short and shallow. It felt like the coming on of sleep, this dying.

She sank down onto the floor, laid her head down on her arm, and closed her eyes.