“Now you’re in a select club,” she whispered to Laurel, hugging them both. Her sister smelled of winter and lavender. The winged man bore the scent of strong winds off the ocean and warm, summer breezes. “With me and an elf. Don’t know if it has any other members.”
“Mortal beings who have embraced me?” intoned Jariel. “It does not.”
Rachel sighed with bliss. Laurel smiled and hugged them both once more. Then, she rose and skated off, looking ridiculously happy. Jariel, who was still kneeling, watched Laurel depart.
Rachel gazed at him, her eyes lingering on his huge black wings. She recalled the forgotten page from the ancient bestiary. “If you’re not a tengu…you’re an angel, aren’t you?”
“I am.” The Raven’s gaze still followed Laurel. “Your family cares about you a great deal. Your sister was ready to die defending you. I wonder, does that trait run throughout your family? The willingness to sacrifice yourself for another? I am not surprised my Father spoke to you and that He used your sister as His vessel.”
They are like me, Rachel thought in amazement and joy. My family—they are just like me. That willingness to die, to sacrifice ourselves for something worthwhile, something we love. She felt closer than ever before to her parents and siblings.
He pointed his finger at Rachel’s feet, and her laces finished lacing themselves. Rachel cried out with delight and glided in a circle. The fit was perfect. She felt sorry that such beautiful silver skates would be gone by the morrow.
“Know this, Rachel Griffin,” Jariel said, still on one knee. He met her gaze eye to eye. “Your father now is closer to who he truly is than before.”
“How so?”
“He had many false memories, used to manipulate him—to better serve the Master’s ends. It made me unable to be as…elegant…in my work. The Master was very specific in what he wanted done.”
“Am I…a real Griffin?” Rachel kicked off and glided backwards, her trailing foot still in the air. “Or is my family from Outside?”
“You are a real Griffin,” he assured her with a kindly smile. “Your father’s family goes back to Abaris of the Arimaspians, just as you have been told. Your mother’s family, on the other hand…but perhaps, it is best not to speak of them here.”
Rachel sighed with relief. Her beloved Grandfather really was her grandfather. She glided back to where Jariel knelt. What had he been about to say about her mother’s family? If she asked him outright, he would not answer, of that she was reasonably certain. Maybe a question from an unexpected direction?
“Mrs. March, the Grand Inquisitor’s wife?” Rachel twirled in a circle and stopped by moving her feet into third position, left foot perpendicular to the middle of the right one, and dragging the back skate on the ice. “She has a great deal in common with my mother: our same dissembling technique, perfect memory, unusually…um…shapely. Mrs. March even has the same slight tilt to the corner of her eyes as Sandra. I know she was supposed to have been conjured, but is Cassandra March somehow related to my mother’s family?”
Jariel gazed at her keenly for a bit. “No. And yes. Of this, I shall say no more.”
“Ah,” Rachel murmured, disappointed, for that cryptic answer had merely caused the fires of her curiosity to burn hotter.
The Raven turned his head and gazed into the distance, the feathers of his folded wings rustling.
Fearing he might be preparing to depart, Rachel said in a small voice, “Before you go, I…have a few more questions.”
“You may ask.”
“Is the ability to give you orders based on rank or talent? In other words, can the younger Romanovs, like the princess, give you orders? Or only the King and his…what? Father? Brother? Cousin? Alternate self? Third Uncle Twice Removed? Can I tell Vladimir about the Romanovs’ part? I think he should know. Can I tell Siggy? Can I talk to you over the bracelet? Is there anything you would like me to do? Or anyone you would like me to pass a message to?”
“Questions, questions.” Jariel smiled down at her fondly. “Let me answer in order: Only the Master of the World may command me now. The ability will pass to his heir should the Master meet his end. Your friend cannot command me at this time. You may tell Vladimir Von Dread. You may tell Sigfried Smith.”
Rachel shouted with joy and jumped up and down, which was difficult in skates, but she managed to keep her balance. She laughed and glided in a circle around him.
“Thank you! Thank you! I hate keeping secrets from Sigfried!”
The Raven continued, “I would prefer if you did not mention any of this to the princess. I foresee the Master will be returning shortly. It would be best were he to not have his attention drawn back to this school. For now, at least. I foresee he will speak to his granddaughter. The less she knows, the less she can betray.
“I can alter your bracelet,” he continued, “so it can communicate with me, but if the person who created it were to take it back, he would know it had been changed.” He touched her bracelet, and it vibrated for a moment. “You may use it as you usually would. Speak the name you have given me, and I will hear.”
A great happiness suffused Rachel. She stood hugging her black bracelet to her chest and beaming, elated. Then a thought occurred that caused her smile to falter.
“Jariel.” She began skating back and forth in front of him, falling into a tight figure-eight. “In November, I saw two ghosts disappear. One dissolved into shining light. That was a good thing, I think. But the other….He was pulled into the ground. Where did he go?”
“Remus Starkadder?” All traces of a smile left the Raven’s face. “He is in Hell.”
“The place you mentioned before? The one that is like Tartarus but worse?” She pushed off, gliding backwards in her dismay.
“A thousand times worse. It is a place of torment, where demons play with the souls of the damned, as if they were so many toys.”
“That’s…horrible!” breathed Rachel. “Can’t something be done?”
“‘And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.’” The Raven spoke as if quoting.
Rachel re-traced the figure-eight carefully, one blade at a time, like an old fashioned figure skater. After a time, she began to wonder if he had forgotten her. She looked around and saw other students happily skating. None of them seemed to notice the inhumanly handsome, eight-foot-tall, winged man.
Finally, he spoke. “Something will be done, in my Father’s own time. For thus shall He send the Keybearers.”
Rachel dropped the saw-toothed toe-rake of her right skate and skidded to a stop. “The Keybearers that I’m not a part of? Those Keybearers? I want to help! I want to go, too!”
“You want to go to Hell?” he asked, stunned.
“If I can help…if I can do some good,” Rachel begged. “Any good at all?”
The Raven stared at her, his eyes gray now and very dark. “Rachel Griffin, you do not have a destiny, such as the Keybearers have, but you do have a future—a likelihood of what will become of you: the things you will most probably do, the family you will most likely have. I think, from what I know of you, that these things will please you.”
He glanced to the left. Following his gaze, she saw Gaius, talking to Vlad and William, as they prepared to play hockey against Joshua March and some other college students.
Jariel turned back to her. “If you chose to go with the Keybearers on their mission, all this may change. That decision will open new doors. If you walk through those doors…I do not know what will occur. Your whole life, your future, may change.”
Rachel moved her skates in and out, so that she slowly moved away from him and then, reversing direction, back toward him again.
She spoke very carefully. “You mean, I might not become the Librarian of All Worlds. And I might not marry Gaius?”
He nodded slowly. A rush of joy almost lifted her from the ice. So these much-desired things did await her! But joining with the Keybearers meant that her future might change. Her stom
ach began to tighten at the thought that she might lose these precious future things.
“Because these things would be taken from me?” asked Rachel, her voice quivering.
Jariel shook his head. “Because you might change.”
“Even if I changed, I could still choose to become the Librarian of All Worlds, right?”
The Raven gazed evenly at her, “Once upon a time, four farm boys wished upon the first star of evening. Each wished for his own farm, there in the valley, with rich crop yield and fish in the river, so that they could all remain fast friends forever. Three received their wish. The fourth however, when his nation went to war, joined up and served.
“When he came home, the old dream was no longer enough for him. He had changed. He departed again and served where able. One day, he returned home, as the lord of those very lands where his old friends lived. In the end, he watched over them with a kind and steady hand.”
“But he could still spend time with his friends, right?” Rachel said in a small voice.
“He could have, but the experience would have been bittersweet . You, as the daughter of a duke, know better than many how difficult it is for a lord to laze by the river and fish with his farmers, as equals. A lord has more urgent tasks.”
Rachel bit her lip. She wanted the things the Raven had mentioned so very much.
A longing came over her to leave her future as it was. Gaius was Vlad’s lieutenant; Rachel’s job was to support the princess and Siggy. They would make great partners. They would marry and have six children and be as happy as any two people could be. She was to be a librarian adventurer and build the Library of All Worlds. She would find the information that others needed in order to do their great deeds. Her task would be in the background, but it would still be important. If she stepped forward into the limelight, everything might change.
She did not like the limelight. She did not want it to change!
And yet, from deep within her, another voice sang, a part of her that followed in her grandfather’s footsteps. That part was fierce and majestic and devoted to justice; the blood of sixty-four generations of Griffins, great sorcerers and dukes, flowed in her veins. It formed an unbreakable bond with the family the Raven had describe—where all members were willing to sacrifice themselves for each other. That part of her could not bear the idea that something was terribly wrong in the universe, and she might walk away without doing all that was within her power to set it right.
Besides, had not she made this decision already, the day she first met the Raven, when she offered her life to save the world? Was she going to back out on that now?
“That’s what I want!” Rachel’s voice was calm and steady, an inner fire burning in her eyes. “I want to help. Even if it means losing everything.”
The Raven’s eyes shone brightly. “For, lo, I open a door, and no power beneath Heaven shall close it.”
The words echoed oddly in her ears. A strange wind blew through the hemlocks, causing their branches to dance. It ruffled his feathers and billowed her hair. He bowed his head, silent.
“I have opened the way.” Jariel straightened again. “You have merely to walk towards it. And if this future should turn out to be harder than you can bear, Rachel Griffin, may my Father have mercy upon us both.”
Chapter Thirty-Two:
Anything For a Friend of Valerie’s
The sun grew low in the west, behind Storm King, and the daylight was beginning to fail. Here and there, so faint that at first Rachel thought it was her imagination, tiny twinkles—blue, lilac, and violet—appeared among the dark trunks of the evergreens. First a glint amidst the icy branches, then two, then four. Then dozens of points of light, all shades of blue and purple, danced in the gloom. They were some kind of will-o-wisp Rachel had never seen before, floating everywhere, like fairy lights.
Rachel’s lips parted in wonder. The scene was like something from a poet’s vision of elfland. In the distance, other students cried out in delight.
Close at hand, Jariel stood before her, the dancing blue and lavender will-o-wisps reflected in the black feathers of his wings. The evening was growing colder. Yet, standing near the angel, Rachel felt as warm as if she were snug at home, sitting before a fireplace. Despite the deepening twilight, he seemed brighter, crisper. She stared up into his gray eyes, her heart full to overflowing.
The Raven turned his head, gazing to the north. “Strange.”
“Strange?” Rachel looked that way as well, though all she could see was hemlocks. “What is that?”
“The ogre has left his cave and is climbing the cliff.” The Raven’s eyes moved, looking beyond what Rachel could see. “The woodwose departs his wood and heads west. The trolls are coming down from their spruce-covered slopes.”
“Are they headed here?” Rachel felt a sensation akin to a shiver.
“Not if the wards hold…”
“Won’t they?” asked Rachel, startled.
The Raven did not heed her. His voice had a distant tone to it, as if he was not quite aware of her. “There are creatures of my world. I should be able to see all likelihoods of their actions. The fact that there is a haze, an uncertainty, is…disturbing.”
“How so?”
“There are very few powers that can deceive my vision, and none of them are…” The Raven’s voice trailed off. He turned back to Rachel “I must depart.”
Rachel threw her arms around him again and whispered, “I love you, Jariel.”
“Thank you, little one.” A smile lit his eyes. He leaned forward until his forehead touched hers, warmth spreading from him to her. “I love you. too.”
Rising to his feet, he stretched his enormous black wings, scattering blue and violet will-o-wisps. Without so much as a twitch of a feather, he soared upward and was gone.
• • •
Rachel glided between the tall dark trunks, tiny blue sparks dancing brightly in the glowing twilight. All the world looked like fairyland. Music rose softly, the lilting strains of Pachelbel’s Canon contributing to the sensation of being in a beautiful dream. As the sky darkened, skaters gathered in a few central areas where the hemlocks were spread far apart, giving them room to maneuver. Girls laughed and shrieked. Boys shouted, egging each other on.
There was a joyful shriek as a laughing Merry Vesper cantered through the middle of the hockey players on the back of her white reindeer. Some of the players applauded. Others swore. Vladimir Von Dread, who again skirmished with Mrs. March’s lanky eldest son, did not even look up. Rachel could not help noticing how fine both young men looked, their faces intent, their hair dark with sweat. Recalling her foolish fantasies—from the days before she knew about Sandra’s secret boyfriend—about how Dread might desire a wife with perfect memory, she blushed at her own naïveté.
Darting away into the growing gloom, Rachel took advantage of a place where the trees grew close together to skate by herself. No other students were nearby; however, a pair of foxes trotted across the ice. Through the hemlocks, she also spotted a raccoon, and a lynx. From the size of the animals, she was certain they were familiars.
Rachel found a nice set of evergreens in two clumps and circled their trunks, forming a lopsided figure-eight. Her feet glided, sure and steady over the ice, but her mind was a million light-years away. A thousand, thousand thoughts chased themselves like dizzy kittens, as the many amazing things that had just occurred somersaulted through her mind: learning to forgive, hearing the words spoken through the glowing-eyed Laurel, and now choosing a more grand and dire future than the one she had originally been dealt. Then there was the woodwose and the ogre. Rachel glanced nervously to the north, but the memory of falling out of the sky on her broom when she and Sigfried flew across the line of tree trunks actually brought her comfort. If the wards could stop Vroomie, they could probably stop a few trolls.
She skated back and forth in the early twilight. Soon, she knew, all this would hit her. At the moment, though, she felt numb—no, not
numb; at peace. The grace and calm that had come with the Voice that spoke through Laurel still surrounded her, cushioning her. But the sorrow and pain that had oppressed her since her father lost his memory still loomed, cold and solid, like a huge frozen block of ice. Sooner or later, the golden warmth keeping this iceberg at bay would ebb, and she would be plunged back into the emptiness and darkness.
As she skated, her blades gliding rhythmically across the snowy ice, her thoughts returned to the quandary that had been bothering her for months. Which should she pursue: Everything or Truth?
Truth felt right, but she balked at giving up her beloved desire to Know everything! But was her goal even theoretically possible? Could any being even come close?
The Emperor of All Things Seen and Unseen. The words rang in her heart like a song. She repeated them once, twice, and then again. She knew nothing of the Lion’s father, but if he were really the emperor of all things, even unseen things, then would he not know which things were truth and which were not? That was what she really wanted—to know All Things Seen and Unseen, or rather to know all things unseen, the secrets no one else had yet discovered.
The dilemma that had been troubling her since Carthage resolved. Blackie had questioned the usefulness of knowing anything but the truth, but his example had not been of a lie, but merely of a trivial fact. Which facts were trivial, however, and which were not were a matter of circumstance. Most likely, she would never need to know about fly eyelashes—especially as she had looked it up and most flies did not have any. Yet, sometimes the most trivial fact, overheard in passing, was the one that proved crucial. With a memory like hers, any fact she learned stayed with her forever. Why not have as many facts filed away to pull out in times of need as possible?
But it would not help her to remember something that was incorrect. What she really wanted was to know truth from lies.
• • •
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 37