Beauty (52 page)

So, and so. The captain had done some dreaming of his own. Or he had taken my dreams for himself.

There was a swirling darkness behind us. Out of this aching cloud a figure lunged toward me, a scrambling monster, a hurtling shadow: Jaybee, alive. Well. He had not suffered here. He belonged here, and he was coming to get me. It had been too late, and useless. His breath touched my face, his fingers touched me ...

"May I drop you somewhere," said a voice from behind me. It was Israfel. The ambassador from Baskarone. Jaybee's hand slid away, an empty skin, a sack, something hollow and unliving.

"Ylles, Israfel, if you please," I said in a fair imitation of Mama's tone.

"Faery, Israfel," said another voice. Carabosse.

He took our hands and we went up.

I looked down to see the river winding toward a far horizon, an endless starlit sea. Behind us was a seething darkness which no light penetrated. "He's still there," I said, disappointed that he had not vanished, as Chinanga once had done.

"A great deal of creativity has gone into that hell," said Israfel. "You and Carabosse and I, we made a spell that freed a few of us, but it will take more than a few verses of Swinburne to free him."

He meant the Dark Lord, of course. I meant Jaybee and all who are like him. Perhaps we both meant the same thing.

"Did you plan for him to catch me?" I asked, wondering now that it was over what it had all been about. "Did you plan it?"

"No," said Carabosse. "Oberon planned it, and Mab. But we knew of it and let it happen. If we'd stopped it, he'd have tried something else. He had the scent and wouldn't give up until he knew-or thought he knew. So we let it happen, but we came along to make sure he would not find in you what he was looking for."

"Will he try again?" I asked, wondering if I could last, again.

"No," said Israfel. "He thinks there's nothing there. He thinks he was misled, and he finds you troublesome. Besides, if things go as we believe they will, he'll be too busy." His voice was furry and throat-stopped with grief. He said nothing more.

28

Israfel and Carabosse suggested that I stop in the world. I did so. They waited while I ate, bathed myself, dressed myself. It took forever. I was so slow. I kept dropping things. Finally, I looked at my hands and cried out, hearing the sound of the cry, a tiny shrilling, like a lost bird. My hands were like claws!

"How long?" I cried.

"The bell rang once each year," Israfel told me.

How many times had it rung. Fifteen? Twenty? "How old am I?" I cried.

"About a hundred and three," said Carabosse, adding kindly, "Don't worry about it, Beauty. It won't matter in Faery."

I laughed, a quavery little laugh. "Odile may not live long enough for me to return again. I think I'll take my things with me this time."

"Things?" Israfel asked, smiling his radiant smile.

"There's still one hank of thread left," I said. "And the needles. I'll put them in my pocket."

When I had dressed myself, I got out Mama's box. It still had the letters in it, her letter, and Giles. I left them there. The time was past for letters. I put on the ring with its little winged figure. I put the needles and thread in my pocket. Then Israfel and Carabosse took me by the hands and led me back into Faery, back onto the flowery meadow where the tents had been set up. A dozen of so of the tents were clustered not far distant from us. Their occupants were standing outside, very quietly, as though they had been waiting for us to arrive.

Carabosse sidled sideways and was gone, but Israfel did not leave me as he had done when he brought me from Chinanga. He walked with me toward the clustered tents, holding my hand upon his arm. On either side, the Sidhe bowed, as though reluctantly, as though forced to do so. None of them looked me or Israfel in the eye, I noticed. I stared them down just to make them more uncomfortable, for among them were the riders who had used me for the teind.

My eyes were drawn to the Copse of the Covenant, where it sat afar upon the grass. There, too, a tent had been raised, and there was no question but that it, too, was occupied. The fabric glowed with a blinding effulgence. I looked away, my eyes watering.

"The messenger of the Holy One, Blessed be He," whispered Israfel, as he prepared to introduce me to those who had been standing by the tents. His fellows. His companions. Male and female.

Michael. Gabriel. Raphael. Uriel. They are the eldest, says Israfel.

Aniel, Raguel, Sariel, and Jerahmeel.

Kafziel, Zadkiel, Asrael, and Israfel himself. There are twelve of them all together. The Long Lost. The separated kindred. Twelve who assented when the Holy One asked Faery to help man; those who went away when Oberon said no; those who built Baskarone; those now returned to Faery. Twelve visitors. Plus Carabosse. Plus the Holy One's envoy.

The envoy is a seraph, says Israfel. Not a star-angel but simply a messenger. Come to deliver the word of the Holy One.

"When I was in Chinanga, I thought
you
were angels," I told them, my eyes on my shoes.

Gabriel shook his head. "Nothing so fiery. From time to time men have seen us and have assumed we were angels, but we are merely ambassadors of Baskarone." His voice sank to a whisper. "To the worlds. Whatever and wherever they may be."

That whisper was familiar! It was like the whispers I had heard in hell, encouraging me, helping me find a way out. I realized suddenly that they might all have been there! All twelve of them! Their faces told me I was right. They had been there. Invisibly, they had followed me into hell, to keep me safe.

Israfel squeezed my hand, giving me a significant look, and I understood. They did not want me to speak of it, not even to thank them. They did not want anyone-anything-to know what they had done. They did not want anyone-anything-to ask why.

I tried to think of something inconsequential to say. "Are you ambassadors even to dreamworlds?" I asked. "Even to places like Chinanga?"

Gabriel laughed. "If one stretches time long enough, they may all be dreamworlds. The only differences may be in the length of the dream and the strength of the dreamer. Perhaps we call reality that which is dreamed the longest, that's all."

I had learned something of cosmology in the twentieth-what anyone who read a popular science magazine might pick up. "You mean the Big Bang?" I said.

"God breathes in, God breathes out," said Gabriel. "Blessed be the name of the Holy One."

"What is Baskarone?" I asked, them. "I thought it was heaven."

"We have tried to make it so," said Sariel. "By copying what was here when man came, and the best of what has been created since. Much of earthly creation had already manifested itself and departed before men came, of course, but we wished to preserve the work of the creators, somewhere."

She sounded almost as sad as Israfel did, and I did not ask any further questions. Besides, there would not have been time. Somewhere a fanfare of trumpets blew, a silvery shiver of sound I had not heard before in Faery. More of the Sidhe came out of their castles and walked slowly down the hills to the meadow where we stood. These were all the kindred of Oberon, those who occupied this world. Behind them came the horses of Faery, tossing their lovely heads, their silver manes flying. The dogs came, too, the white dogs with their red ears and red eyes.

From the other directions, Bogles emerged, as they do, making that sideways sidle which brings them into one world or another.

During what followed, I stood with my hand on Israfel's arm, his kindred arrayed behind us, watching them come. Puck came up to us, quite unselfconsciously, nodding to Israfel as though he knew him well. While he watched his fellow Bogles assemble, he whispered to us both, taking an inventory, as it were, jigging from foot to foot with the rhythm of his voice.

"When the silver trumpets sound to every puck and peri,
From the clustered hills around, come the folk of Faery.
Brownies, brags, bugbears, hags,
big black dogs and banshees,
Boggy-boes, hobby-thrusts,
imps and lianhanshees,
Kitty-witches, hinky-punks,
clabber-naps and swaithes,
Fachans, follets, fays, fiends,
gallytrots and wraithes,
Selkies, scrats, spunks, spurns,
ciuthaches and cowies,
Nickies, nacks, gholes, grants,
tutgots and tod-lowries,
Melch-dicks and come-fuicks,
cars and mares and pixies,
Pad-fooits and leprechauns,
chittifaces, nixies,
Sprets, trows, gnomes, kowes,
goblins and Peg-powlers,
Ouphs, brags, nickers, nags,
nisses and night-prowlers.
Lubbers, lobs, tantarrabobs,
cluricans and correds,
Tangies, trolls, tatterfoals,
hobbits and hob-horrids,
Mawkins, tints, gringes, squints,
shellycoats and sprites,
Roanes and ratchets, pinkets, patches,
grindylows and wights.
When they hear the summons sound, every puck and peri
from the clustered hills around gathers into Faery."

He grinned at me, cocking his eyebrows, and I knew he'd been trying to amuse me. I suppose I must have been amused, or at least interested, for I'd paid enough attention to note that he had not mentioned the Fenoderee in this inventory, which was not inclusive in any case. Puck had ignored thurses, knockers, kobolds, and a dozen other beings that Fenoderee had spoken of.

When all the Bogles had ranged themselves on the seaside in a vast half circle, the Sidhe began to arrive, gathering on the upland side and leaving a lane clear to the Copse of the Covenant, which stood toward the mountains.

I did not see Mama anywhere.

Israfel put his hand on my shoulder and said, "She'll be here."

And at last she came, from her own castle, which stood to the south of the upland. She came walking with one or two of her people, Joyeause and another aunt, I think it was. There were tears in my eyes. I was grieving and didn't know why. When she came close enough, I saw how very beautiful she is. She looked at me, shaking her head a little from side to side, tears running down her cheeks. Oberon looked at her, then away, flushing angrily. He had sent her away when they gave me as the teind to hell! She hadn't known he was going to do it.

And it was all right. No matter that I was a hundred and three and all my remaining years had been used up in hell. It was all right. She hadn't known. She hadn't wished me ill. Oh, didn't I know it's the best we can do, sometimes, simply not to wish our children ill.

"Get on with it," said Oberon, impatiently.

Gabriel answered him. "There's nothing to get on with, brother. We are not here to make judgements."

"A little late to call me 'brother,'" said Oberon.

"Not at all," Gabriel said. "We were made at one birth, you and I. We were both children of the Covenant. You and your people chose your way and I and my people chose ours. You have done as you have done, and we have done as we have done. Now we will be judged, both, but neither you nor I will do the judging."

As though that had been an introduction, the seraph came out of the tent and moved down the lane between the Bogles and Oberon's kindred. I couldn't tell what the seraph looked like. All I could see was light, not too bright to look at but much too bright to see whatever was inside. Maybe it was all light and nothing else. It was not made for earth, as man and Faery were. "Earth is all we were given," Puck had told me. "Both Faery and mortal man. Earth is all we were given."

"Oberon," said the seraph. The word was really a word, but there was no sound. We all apprehended the word, but we didn't hear it. It seemed to hang within us, somehow, like a sensation. Like a pain.

Oberon didn't speak. He stood, head up, staring at the light, refusing to blink.

"You have broken the Covenant between Faery and the Holy One, Blessed be He."

"Not true," said Oberon in a harsh whisper. "No
human
has come to harm through me."

"She stands before you. Beauty, daughter of Elladine. Half human in birth. Wholly human in life."

"She's here! She isn't hurt! She isn't dead!"

I felt the glamour around me thick as salve. I could tell from the expressions on all their faces that I was beautiful, lovely as the dawn, lovelier than Mama, even. They were all set on making me so. Their eyes were on me, strengthening me, making me glow. I wish I could have seen me at that moment. Just to remember. I felt myself shining like a star.

Israfel's hands touched the top of my head, came down my head to the shoulders, down my arms, on down my body. I felt the glamour stripped away. Oberon refused to look. The others could not take their eyes away. I saw Mama weeping as though she could not stop. I was so weak, I wanted to lie down. So old. So fragile. So very tired.

And still, I wanted to defend them. I wanted to cry out, "No! They've given more than the pain cost! There's beauty here. There's enchantment here. They've let me have that. I've had a life that's worth more than the lost years. Don't hurt them. Don't hurt my mama ... "

I tried to say that. Israfel's hands rested on my thighs, my old, quivering thighs, barely able to hold me up. I gasped for air. I tried to shout and couldn't, tried to intervene and couldn't. I raised one hand, and it trembled.

"Shhh," said Israfel.

I bowed my head, feeling tears. It wasn't only the years they'd taken from me. They'd taken my strength to defend them. The seraph would have listened if I could have spoken. They'd given my love for them away. They'd risked God's displeasure, and for what?

"She has lived only a few years in the world," the seraph said. "And yet her life has been used up. If she had spent it here in Faery, the Holy One would have said little. A pity, perhaps, but at least partly through her own choosing. A few years in Faery can be of great joy to mortal men, teaching them dreams. But among you was one who turned to the darkness of pain, not as a spur to knowledge, but as an end in itself. Among you was one who made a god of horror. Among you was one who turned his imaginings inward, an immortal who lusted after death, who set himself up as a god of death, which had only paltry gods until he came. He has let men come to him, those with similar desires. Together they have built a hell. We do not charge you with the deaths of those men, for they went to him of their own will.