I knew she would not. “When does she want me to come?” I asked.
“Now. As soon as you can.” Again she made the pushing gesture, telling me to go with Puck.
I didn’t want to leave her. “Should I be leaving just now? With this business of Oberon going to battle and your going with him?”
For a third time, she gestured at me to go. “That’s why you must go! Oberon is irritated at you. Oh, Beauty, he’s irritated at himself for … well, you know what for. He looks at you, and it reminds him of how irritated he is. It’s not a good time for you to be in Faery.”
I stared at her. “It’s probably the last time I will be in Faery, Mama. I’m really one hundred and three. Human people seldom live that long. When I go back, I’m gone. This is the last time you and I will be together.”
She started to cry again, and I felt dreadful. I patted her on the shoulder. “Never mind. I’ll go see old Carabosse. I won’t stay long. We’ll have some time to ourselves when I come back.” As I turned to join the Bogles, she was trudging up the hill toward Oberon’s castle.
Nothing had changed at Carabosse’s cottage. The clocks still ticked and could still be silenced by her gesture. The only surprise was that Israfel was with her. They were both very quiet. When we had had tea, Carabosse suggested that I look into her Forever Pool and took me out with her and Israfel to the garden. The pool lay beyond it, among a grove of silver trees. The bridge which arched over it reminded me of the one arching the Pool of Delights, and its purpose was the same. We leaned on the railing, Israfel, Carabosse, and I, looking into its depths, seeing our faces dimly reflected on the black water.
Carabosse moved her hand over the water. Darkness. There was only darkness. Israfel moved his. Still only darkness.
Carabosse said, “Now you,” and I did, moving my hands as she had moved hers, in a wide double arc above the surface.
Israfel sighed. “There,” he said, pointing. I looked where he pointed and saw a glimmer of light, so faint, so dim, as though in the very bottom of the pool some treasure gleamed, softly and infinitely far.
“Well, so,” breathed Carabosse. She and Israfel looked at one another, no expression on their faces at all, but I could feel something flowing between them.
We went back into the cottage. “What’s going to happen?” I asked them.
“Something other than what we planned,” Carabosse whispered. “It is almost as though someone else had done the planning.”
“Whatever happens,” Israfel said, “we have seen light at the end of time. I will carry word of that to the others. I think it will be enough.”
And that is absolutely all he would say, though his hand lingered caressingly upon my shoulder as he bid me farewell. I stayed only a little while longer. When I went out, Puck was standing there with the horse to take me back. We rode through the forest while Puck sang ballads at me and the Fenoderee accompanied him on a lute.
We stopped on the way to have a picnic. More human food: sliced ham and fresh baked bread and fruit. Several of the more interesting Bogles joined us and vied with one another in telling strange tales of humans they had known. I think I slept. I seem to remember sleeping. We stopped in a wonderful glade to pick orchidlike flowers that grew in the trees. Several Bogles came along and lectured me on the flora and fauna of Faery. It was interesting that some of the creatures I had taken as Bogles, they took as animals, and that some of the creatures I had thought were animals definitely were Bogles. There seemed to be no clear way to tell. Black dogs, for example, are Bogles. The Hedly Kowe, however, is an animal. At least, most of the time it is. And so are the Gwartheg y Llyn. I may have fallen asleep again, during one of the lectures.
We stopped again, to look at a waterfall which Puck thought extremely beautiful. There he introduced me to a nixie, and she insisted that we try some of her water-moss wine, which was exceedingly delicious. Could I have fallen asleep again? It seems to me I did.
When Puck suggested we stop for the fourth time, I said, “Puck, you’re preventing my getting back, aren’t you? I think you should tell me why.”
He shook his head at me. “Well, to begin with, there was some talk among Oberon and his close kin about your knowing your way about in the Dark One’s halls. Oberon was talking about taking you along, as a guide.”
“I don’t know my way about,” I said, astonished. “The Dark Lord is one of the Sidhe. They would know more about him than I. Every time I moved about in that place, it was different.”
“We know that,” said Puck. “And so does Oberon by now. We were just giving him time to become sensible, that’s all.”
“A very long time,” I complained, suddenly worried that we had been away too long.
“We could have returned sooner,” he replied. “But Israfel suggested we should allow some time for other developments to occur.”
With all the picnics and wine tastings and zoological lectures, I felt we had been gone long enough for most anything to occur. When we came out of the trees, however, it was apparent that what Israfel had meant by “developments” was much more than I could possibly have foreseen. I had rather expected to see Oberon and his kindred making ready for battle, a few hundreds of the folk of Faery making a brave but futile array upon the meadow. What I saw instead was a sea of lances, the assembling of a mighty host, all in bright armor with banners coiling slowly overhead.
And there at
