Puck was sitting on the ground near where Israfel left me. He got up to take me by the hand and help me seat myself on a convenient stone. I noticed for the first time that he rather resembled Giles. Not the face so much as around the eyes. But then he looked a little like Bill there, too. Strange how much there is of people we love in other people we love. He offered me a cup of something warm which he happened to have by him. It tasted suspiciously like worldly chicken soup with barley in it, and he confessed he had stolen it from a mortal kitchen.
“The cook will not miss it,” he said. “She had a whole pot of the stuff. Rest, Beauty, and tell me about Baskarone.”
I told him what I could, waxing as poetic as it is in me to be. I could see him noting it all down in his head, ready to make a song of it. While we sat there, several Bogles gathered around, including the Fenoderee. When I had told him all I could, I asked him what had transpired in Faery since I had been there last. I did not ask him how long I had been gone. I was afraid to know that.
It was thus I learned of the war.
“Oberon’s people are not happy with him,” Puck said. The Bogles all nodded at this intelligence, agreeing that indeed the Daoine Sidhe were extremely unhappy with Oberon.
“He has decided, therefore, that it is all someone else’s fault.”
“Not mine?” I said, horrified. “Not Mama’s?”
Puck shook his head and laughed, shortly. “The Dark Lord’s fault, Beauty. If the Dark One had not tempted Oberon, then Oberon would not have broken the Covenant on his behalf. Therefore, everything is the Dark Lord’s fault, and Oberon is going to fight him. Him and his close kindred, at least.” He sounded disapproving.
“But that’s what you wanted them to do!” I cried.
“True, though not for that reason,” brooded Puck. “The problem is that Oberon and his kindred are not strong enough by themselves to do more than irritate the Dark Lord, but the rest of Faery is too annoyed with Oberon to follow him.”
I asked, “What about you, Puck? And Fenoderee? And all the Bogles?”
The Fenoderee answered. “He hasn’t asked our help, and fighting isn’t our kind of thing. Bogles have never gone to war. Even though there are a few tribes of us capable of violence, by and large we are too individual and eccentric. I think most Bogles will return to the world and live out our lives, such as they are. We may not be immortal any longer, but something tells us we’re a long-lived people. Likely even in the twentieth or twenty-first, there’ll be folk thinking they’ve seen a Bogle, or heard one.”
“Where will Oberon attack the Dark Lord?” I asked.
“The Dark Lord won’t come out,” one of the little folleti piped from the circle around. “So Oberon will have to go in after him.”
“Will my mama go with him?”
They nodded, slowly.
“He has many demons there,” I cried. Actually, the thought of the demons bothered me less than those other things in hell. Those horrors created by men in the future.
I told the Bogles about some of them, and they shivered where they stood. “I don’t know if those things can be killed,” I told them. “Men invented them, but the Dark Lord has given them a dreadful kind of life. They may be proof against anything Oberon can do. Can the Dark Lord himself be killed?”
Puck nodded. “He was of the Sidhe, Beauty. His pride led him to break the Covenant. He was so proud he did not realize he would lose his immortality when the Sidhe lost theirs. Both he and Oberon are like the sons of a generous father who are spendthrift with their father’s fortune, treating it as though it were their own and limitless, as though they had earned it rather than receiving it as a gift. Then the time comes at last when the father says enough. Then, when the sons are left without the riches, they curse fate and their father, not willing to lay the blame at their own feet. Yes, the Dark Lord can die, just as Oberon now can die.”
I stood up and brushed myself off. It was time I saw Mama. I had promised her I would come back. The Bogles took me part way, then left me as I started up the hill toward the castle of Ylles. As I approached, I saw her coming toward me. We met halfway, and she kissed me. This time she didn’t mention my smell. I was careful not to mention hers, which was the smell of old flowers, drying and fading.
I told her what I could about the things they would find in the Dark One’s lair and begged her not to go with Oberon. She shook her head at me, but she listened carefully to what I had to say, asking me one question and another. She said the things I described had not been there when she had been used as the teind. Barrymore Gryme and his ilk hadn’t been there, either. There had been only fairy horrors, things Mama could handle fairly easily. When I had finished telling her, Mama was very pale and seemed rather frightened. I wondered if she would be able to convince Oberon that he should be careful. Oberon had always struck me as being both arrogant and precipitant in his actions.
Mama said she must go talk with him, but even as she turned to go, she clung to my hand. Finally, she pushed me away from her, pointing toward the place where Puck and the Bogles waited. “Your Grandaunt Carabosse wants you to come to tea. She says she will
