The princess considered this carefully, her head slightly inclined. “What can we do?”
“Vow that you will tell no one of her existence.”
Rachel’s chest constricted. She clenched her fists. Oh, no! First the Raven showed up, right when she was about to receive the gift for which she yearned. Now this, right when she had been so looking forward to telling Gaius about meeting an elf. She swallowed twice, as if by doing so, she could somehow gulp down her regret.
“I disapprove of secrecy,” the princess spoke with quiet dignity, “but if it is for reasons of security, then it is a necessary evil. I will agree.”
“I hate keeping secrets,” Siggy scowled. “It means I have to remember what not to say.”
Rachel’s thoughts flew rapidly. She hated breaking her word. She did not want to give it unless she was certain she could keep it.
“What about Valerie?” she asked slowly. “She’s a member of the Inner Circle.”
“We cannot keep this secret from the sleuth of our operation,” Sigfried announced. “Miss Hunt cracked the Dr. Mordeau case wide open. She puzzled and puzzed until her brain bled out her nose. It would be an ill turn to repay that kind of moxie with a brush off—especially now that we’ve found a real live, um, silvery-gray woman with pointy ears, who seems to know something of what’s going on in the bigger picture.”
Rachel nodded. “That’s why I brought it up.”
Sigfried continued, “If we are going to be a gang, and I mean a real gang, like the Purple Gang, or the Daltons, or the Merry Men, or the Short Tails, or the Knights of the Table Round, we have to stick up for each other through thick and thin. We’ve talked over who to keep in the inner circle, until we were blue in the face. Now that we found and plugged the main leak—Geased Hunt—I suggest the inner circle consist of Romanov, Griffin, Me, Hunt, and O’Keefe.”
“Maybe we should include Zoë Forrest,” suggested Rachel. “She is the one who took revenge on the Drake girls for me. And, she can walk through dreams. Very useful.”
“That is useful!” Sigfried exclaimed. “She could be our wheelman! Which brings me to code names! I suggest Princess Perfect, Dragon Boy, Memory Lass, Fearless Reporter Girl, Keefster, and Wheels.”
“I’d rather not have a code name that gives away my secret power!” squeaked Rachel. She glanced nervously at the supernatural creatures, to see if they were impatient. The elf looked infinitely patient. The Raven looked annoyed. Of course, the Raven always looked annoyed.
“You make some good points, Mr. Smith,” agreed the princess. “On the other hand, this elf woman’s life is at stake. And she did just help us, asking nothing in return.”
“Mr. Gideon knows, of course,” said Rachel.
“Give this no thought,” the elf’s bell-like voice was soft as distant chimes in a faint summer breeze. “I have lived a long, long time.”
“How long?” Siggy asked. “Are you older than potato chips? Older than sliced bread? Everyone’s always saying ‘the greatest thing since sliced bread’, so there must have been a time before it. Older than cheese?”
“I am older than spoken language.” She gave him a gentle smile. “I chose my path willingly, knowing the possible consequences.”
Siggy looked impressed. “Is spoken language older or younger than cheese?”
“Please,” Rachel spoke softly, not sure if she addressed the elf or the Raven, “explain so we can understand. Why are you in danger? Who is damaging our world? What Walls?”
The Raven said, “Behold.”
Rachel fell into a dream. She could smell the exotic herbs, but instead of the garden, stone walls rose around her. Five sorcerers in gray robes stood around an altar. A man was tied upon it, blood running from the slit across his throat. Beyond the altar, a shimmer formed in the air. The shimmer coalesced into a dark man with eyes like burning coals and wings of smoke.
“Hey, I saw that guy before,” Sigfried said, “when I first approached the Tree Lady.”
Rachel started. She had not realized that her friends were in the dream with her.
The princess stated, “His wings look like those of the being I spoke with when I touched Joshua March. The one calling himself the Lightbringer. But this is not the same creature.”
“Behold the demon Azrael,” said the Guardian. “The sorcerers who worked for the German leader, Bismarck, used a spell known to their foremost member, Johann Faust the Fifth, to summon him. Their intent was to send the demon against the British sorcerers in an attempt to wrest Egypt away from Great Britain. However, they picked their target badly. The intended victim bound Azrael with a great spell that locked him into a human host.
“While in this state, Azrael is bound to the laws governing human beings. I do not mean the laws of men, but the natural and supernatural laws that govern the relationship of human beings to the universe. This is well, as it limits his capacity for evil. However, as long as he is within a human being, the rules allow him to remain. I cannot oust him from my world.
“The goal of his human host was to resurrect the dead. This became the goal of the composite. This is, also, the goal of his human servants—the Morthbrood.”
“Is that the goal of the Veltdammerung, too?” asked Rachel.
The Raven shook his head. “The true Veltdammerung are from Outside. They seek the destruction of the world.”
“I knew it!” Siggy cried. “I knew those idiots were Metaplutonians!”
“But…why?” Rachel cried. “What have we done?”
“They seek the destruction of all worlds.”
Rachel’s mouth fell open. “Oh.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Raven?” The princess raised her hand. “I have a question.”
The Raven regarded her. “Yes, Nastasia Romanov?”
“What is a demon?” asked the princess.
“A denizen of Hell,” he replied.
Copying the princess, Joy raised her hand. “You mean the goddess Hela’s kingdom?”
The Raven shook his head. “Hell is a place of horror and torment, where those who have not lived good lives are punished after their deaths.”
“Like Tantalus and Sisyphus being punished in Tartarus?” asked Rachel.
“A bit like. In the mythical Tartarus, the punishments had a certain poetic justice. Those in hell are tortured and tormented by creatures motivated by barbaric cruelty.”
“That sounds…terrible,” murmured Rachel.
“It is,” the Raven spoke gravely, “the most terrible thing.”
Siggy raised his hand. “Um. I have a question. If he wanted to raise the dead, why didn’t he just raise an army of zombies?”
“They wish for true resurrection.”
“Is true resurrection…bad?” Rachel asked curiously.
“Demons always act so as to cause the most possible harm,” the Guardian explained. “Azrael knows a spell that rips a person from another world, causing disaster and carnage on the far side. He used this spell again and again, telling his human servants that it would summon someone who could raise the dead for them—if they performed it often enough.”
“This spell…” Rachel’s voice faltered, “it involves slaughtering families?”
The Raven nodded. “Slaughtering a family before the eyes of one survivor—usually the weakest and least self-reliant member.”
A deep growl came from inside Sigfried. “This Azrael is an orphan-maker?”
The Raven inclined his head. “You could call him so.”
“I wonder if that’s what happened to your family, Mr. Smith,” mused the princess.
Sigfried yowled like a wild animal and jammed his knife into the root of the great tree. As the blade sank into the wood, the elf flinched.
Rachel turned back to the Raven. He towered above her. His hair fell around his head and shoulders like dark feathers.
She asked, “You said their spell brings someone here, right? But when the person comes, you fit them in. So, no one notices they are
from Outside. Is that right?”
He nodded gravely.
“So,” Rachel mused, her thoughts whirling furiously, “they are trying to bring about an effect they’ve already accomplished. Only they do not know, right?”
He nodded again.
“And the Wall, you mentioned? What is it?”
“The Wall is the barrier that keeps the Outside at bay. It is both a thing and an idea—the thought in the mind of the citizens here that their world is a definite, solid thing. Each time someone is dragged in from beyond, the Wall weakens. When people talk of the Beyond, or of things not in keeping with the Laws here, it grows weaker.”
“And if we suddenly told everyone the truth about Metaplutonians?” asked Sigfried.
“The Wall would crumble away,” replied the Raven. “The world would dissolve back into the chaos of Outer Dreaming.”
“What if we just told the Unscary about the World of the Wisecrackers?” asked Siggy.
The Raven was undaunted by Sigfried’s non-standard terminology. “The sudden change in what mankind believed would be too great. The Wall would fail. The world would be lost.”
“That’s not fair!” Siggy kicked the pommel of his knife, driving it deeper into the tree. The elf lady flinched again. “What happens to this Azrael if we kill his host body? Does he die?”
Rachel reached over and tapped Siggy lightly on the shoulder. She pointed at the knife and shook her head. He looked puzzled, but he shrugged, pulled out the blade, and wiped it off.
“No. He cannot die, per se. Under the current confines of the spell, he moves into the closest appropriate body. Or he might conceivably get free. This would be even worse, because there would be no force restraining him from causing as much damage as he desired.”
“Wait!” Rachel cried, “This Azrael. He ended up inside someone from Bismarck’s era?”
The Raven inclined his head.
“Aleister Crowley?”
He nodded yet again.
“And when Crowley died, he went into a boy who was nearby: Mortimer Egg.”
The Raven cocked his head. “You know a great deal.”
“I pay attention.”
“Apparently, you do.”
“But, Guardian,” the elf insisted gently, “the binding on Azrael grows weak. Any day now, it might break. What then?”
“What does this mean?” Rachel looked back and forth between the elf and the Raven.
The Raven stated, “The spell that binds Azrael was expertly cast. It consisted of two parts. The first and greater part confined the demon to a human form. The second confined his powers to the latent abilities of his human host. Were this second binding to break, he would still be trapped in Egg’s body; however, he could bring to bear the full force of his infernal powers. The carnage he could commit would be far greater. In a single day, he could kill more victims than all the wars of the past two centuries. He could destroy the Wall.”
“And this second binding is the one that is weakening?” Rachel’s heart hammered in her chest. She knew it! She had known the world was in imminent danger.
The Raven inclined his head. “It has grown weaker, but it remains. Mortimer Egg is still in control of the body the majority of the time. His love for his family—his son and particularly his wife—keep him human. So long as he can maintain this humanity, the bindings will hold.”
Siggy stepped forward, glaring. “You make Lucky into a stupid animal! Why?”
“That is not my intent.” The Guardian bowed his head. “This world is flexible. It can adjust to new powers. As I bring people here, I fit them in as best I may—I strive to keep what is unique about them, even if it is at odds with our current laws of nature. It can take time for the world to learn to obey the new laws.”
“That’s why there is so much new magic!” Rachel cried triumphantly.
The Raven turned his head, staring off into the distance. “I must go.”
“Go where?” asked Princess Nastasia.
“I watch the Walls,” he replied. “I have not mingled with people since…before there were people.”
With a last nod to them, the Raven turned into a bird again and flew away. A rumble of thunder from Stony Tor, now only a short ways east of them, rolled across the glade.
Joy shivered, hugging her arms. “Boy, that guy was creepy!”
The princess’s eyes narrowed. “I do not trust him.”
Siggy shrugged and turned to the elf. “You’re a Metaplutonian? How did you come here?”
“There was a terrible calamity on my world, and I fell physically into dreams. I could not navigate, as I normally did. Ordinarily, I traveled in my dreams, but my body stayed safe at home. This time, I was lost. I would have perished had your Guardian not saved me.”
“And you cannot return to your home?” asked Joy.
“I can see the place I left behind in my dreams, but I cannot move my body to return.”
“Are you a…” Joy waved her hand, “whatever that bird guy is, too?”
“No. I am a Lios Alfar. He is a god.” The elf paused. “He is the brother of my mother.”
“Enough of this. Back to important things!” declared Sigfried.
He stepped forward and began pestering the elf with questions about his destiny as a great alchemist. The princess and Joy lowered their voices and discussed their suspicions about the Raven. Nastasia pointed out that the Raven had seemed friendly with the Lightbringer and had allowed that smoky-winged being, whom she had first come upon torturing a grown-up version of one of their fellow students, to trouble her dreams. Rachel listened, but her thoughts were elsewhere.
She wanted to concentrate on the threat, but the blind spot in her memory absorbed her attention. Her mind worried at it. Nothing of any import had happened. She had climbed over a stone wall and walked toward a tree. Yet, she could not seem to drag her thoughts away from it.
The idea that such a thing could happen again terrified her.
The elf concluded her discussion with Sigfried and extended her hand toward Rachel. “Now, your turn, dear one. Come.”
Rachel took her hand. They walked together toward the cleft in the Roanoke Tree. As they entered the hollow, Rachel’s heart beat rapidly with joy. Inside, she turned slowly in a circle. Her lips parted with delight. It was every bit as wonderful as she had hoped. A chamber had been carved from the living tree. In the soft glow of the will-o-the-wisps, everything shone like warm gold, bringing out the grain of the wood. On the far side, a spiral staircase wound its way upward and out of sight.
Rachel ran her fingers over the glossy surface of a cabinet and a chair, both still part of the trunk. She stared up at the swirling grain of the living wood. Breathing in a wonderful scent, wintergreen and fresh sap, she twirled in a circle, her arms outstretched, her head tilted back. Here was something truly marvelous—a fairy dwelling.
The elf’s lovely, silky gown rustled softly. Rachel stopped spinning and beamed at her.
“You’re still willing to help me?” Rachel asked tentatively. “After what the Raven said?”
The elf’s smile was kind yet sad. “I cannot give you that for which you asked. You will have to pick new gift.”
A feeling like the ripping of a priceless tapestry occurred inside her. Her mind poked yet again at the missing spot. Now, its absence would torment her for the rest of her life. Worse would be the knowledge that it could happen again. She knew this must be a problem other people faced—those who had not grown up with perfect memories. But they had had years to get used to forgetting things. They did not seem entirely paralyzed and unable to concentrate when they could not remember something. They continued their lives without a fuss. Neither Sigfried or Nastasia had seemed particularly troubled that they had forgotten what happened at the stone wall. Sigfried forgot things constantly and thought little of it. If anything, he was proud of it.
Her mind, on the other hand, did not seem to work correctly with a hole in it. She felt adrift, as
if someone had tossed her over an abyss and left her there, spinning with no hand-hold.
“B-but…you said you knew a…” Her voice failed, her mouth too dry to speak.
“That was before the Guardian came, child.”
“Oh…He…” She paused and took a ragged breath. “When he spoke of Oblivion, he meant the ability to rob us of our memory.”
The elf nodded. “If I gave you the Memory Rune, he would no longer be able to make you forget. Nothing would.”
“You mean…if someone new came, and the Raven changed things…a person with this Rune would still remember the original version.”
The elven lady nodded again.
“Oh, my!” Rachel stood entirely still, her fingers pressed against her mouth.
So great was the longing in her heart for this Rune that no part of her was left for frivolous things, such as speech or movement. To be free from having her memory changed. Ever. By any power. How painful that such a thing existed, and yet would never be hers. Her chest felt numb, as if a hole gaped where her heart should be.
“What gift would you like instead, child?”
“No gift.” Rachel lowered her head humbly. She swallowed but could not seem to dislodge her heart from where it was stuck in her throat. “I…don’t need anything.” She looked up, meeting the elf’s gaze. “Maybe you could give something extra to one of the others?”
They stood in silence; no sound except the rustling of the elf’s gown, which moved as if it carried its own breeze. Finally, Rachel drew a ragged, painful breath. Her voice sounded low and strained from her effort to control it.
“I suppose you think it is childish of me,” she choked out, “to be pained so by losing something others cannot ever have. To complain about forgetting a few things, when everyone else forgets so much. I am sure my friends must find my request…pathetic.
“I will go now, and try to be more grateful for what I have. I…thank you for letting me see your house. For a brief moment, I felt…” She covered her face and could not continue.
The elf’s gown rustled beside her. Rachel heard it move in front of her and then move lower to the ground. When she peeked between her fingers, the elven woman was kneeling before her. She took Rachel’s hands in her own, chafing Rachel’s cold fingers with her warm ones.
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 25
