“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
