The gypsy man shook his head sheepishly. "I was so happy when I found the stone in the wreckage of the tower that I grew careless. As I was climbing back up the cliff face, I slipped and fell. My leg was broken. I thought… I thought that I would die." He shuddered at the memory. "But I didn't."
Karin knelt to examine the splint on his leg. "A skilled hand did this," she murmured. "Who helped you, Steffan?"
His eyes glittered. Finally he whispered the words. "It was the angel…
Gasps went around the circle. In these last weeks, all had heard the legend of the Angel of the Moor. Again and again, folk who had become lost or injured on the desolate heath told the identical tale. Just as hope had faded, a mysterious woman had appeared out of the swirling mists to help them. Without speaking a word, the angel had healed their wounds and guided them to safety before vanishing silently into the fog. Some people said she was hideously disfigured. Othets said she was radiantly beautiful, as pale and ethereal as a ghost. All spoke of her eyes-haunting, mesmerizing eyes like violet flames.
Steffan went on. "Just when I was ready to let the crows take me, there she stood. She splinted my leg and gave me herbs to ease my pain. For three days she brought me food and water. Not once did she speak a word. Finally I was strong enough to try to walk again. As soon as she saw I could make it on my own, she vanished. I never even had the chance to thank her." He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was soft and low. "As long as I live, I will never forget her eyes." He shook his head in wonder. "An angel's eyes…"
Karin, Riandra, and Varith exchanged knowing, — sorrowful looks, but they said nothing.
Music and light drifted anew on the darkling air, filling the night with celebration.
She stood on the edge of a sheer precipice, glowing in the gauzy moonlight like a statue hewn of white marble. The wind whipped soft tatters of silk about her body like tendrils of lavender mist, and her golden hair streamed back from a face as round arid pale as the rising moon, injury had twisted one of her shoulders into a hideous hump, yet this imperfection only seemed to accentuate the ethereal beauty of her face. The woman gripped something that hung about her throat. Metal glinted in the moonlight. It was a golden locket. The woman stared madly into the night, as if her glowing violet eyes glimpsed something there that no other could see-something vast, and ancient, and eternally ravenous.
At last she turned and vanished into the gloom, leaving the darkness to its own designs.