The elf woman glided behind the spiral staircase and out of sight. She came back with an earthenware pitcher, the sides of which were the color of running water. The glaze was so cleverly crafted that it looked as if liquid were pouring from the top, running down the vessel. Even after Rachel touched the cool, dry sides, her eyes refused to give up the illusion. Illondria held the pitcher over some rose-colored, fluted, crystal glasses and poured. What she poured, Rachel could not say. It flowed, and yet it did so in a languid manner, as mist might if poured from a teapot. The color was pearly yet tinged with the glow of a sunset.
“Don’t worry,” the elf woman’s voice rang like sweet bells as she set the glasses before them. “This is safe for your kind. It will not make you unfit to eat the food of the mortal world.”
Zoë shook her green head, her braid and its feather flying, and stepped back. But Sigfried lifted the drink and quaffed it. His expression went funny, and he blinked rapidly several times. After squeezing her eyes shut and hoping for the best, Rachel took an exploratory sip.
Her mouth remained dry, and yet something entered it. It was sweet and light, like drinking the scent of honeysuckle, and yet it reminded her of mountain tops and a thunderstorm over the moors. A warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with heat or cold.
“That’s…brilliant!” crowed Siggy, extending the arm with the glass in it. “May I have another?”
The elf woman shook her head. “That would probably be unwise. Your kind seldom drink such draughts. To drink too much might bring on…unexpected results.”
“Really?” Siggy perked up. He was no longer shivering. “What kind of results? Cool ones? Can I grow a second head? Make music come out of my ears? Turn into a dragon? I’d love to turn into a dragon. That would be the best. Here, give me another swig!”
With a gentle smile, Illondria whisked the pitcher back behind the spiral staircase.
Rachel took another sip. The sorrows of the last two months tasted salty and sour in her mouth. Then, they faded a bit, with only the tingle of a minty sweetness left.
Disconcerted, Rachel put the glass back on the table.
Zoë made a noise in her throat. She was staring upward, looking this way and that, her mouth slightly open. Rachel was pretty certain that the other girl was looking at something Rachel could not see.
“Oh!” Zoë cried, when the elf woman returned. “So this is why it’s so easy to get around Roanoke at any hour of the day or night! I thought it was because Sarpy sleeps so much. Those are your dreams we’re walking through! They’re…huge!”
Illondria smiled. “I was once a queen of the Lios Alfar. Our dreams encompass worlds.”
“I can see…all the way to the moon,” Zoë said. “That’s something!”
“To the moon! I want to fly to the moon!” Sigfried cried fiercely. “If we made a flying broom the size of a sequoia, do you think it could reach escape velocity? We’d have to have Griffin fly it, though. I wouldn’t want to go into a tailspin in low earth orbit and fall off. That could end badly. What do you think, Lucky? Think we could leave tonight?”
Lucky, who had stuck his long flickering tongue into Rachel’s abandoned glass, pulled it back quickly. “Oh definitely, Boss.” He cocked his head. “Wait, there’s gold on the moon, right? Not just cheese?”
“Tons!” Sigfried declared. He had pulled a half-eaten marshmallow out of his pocket, stuck it on the jeweled end of his wand, and was trying to roast it over the blue and green flame. The marshmallow did not catch fire, but it did seem cheerier. “I read in a magazine that satellite pictures have shown that the top foot of regolith—that’s moon soil to all you uninitiated—at the south pole of the moon has 100 times the concentration of gold of the richest mines on earth!”
Lucky straightened up on his legs, so he stood as tall as a large dog. His long scarlet whiskers twitched. “Yes! Yes! Tonight! We’ve got to get to the moon before the evil scientists get there and take our gold!”
Rachel was not certain if Lucky meant to imply that there was a group of evil scientists out there, or if he just meant that the scientists who had discovered the moon gold—and thus might take it from him—were evil.
“Whoa, Nelly. Hold your horses…or brooms…or dragons,” Zoë waved her hands back and forth. “No one’s going to the moon today. Okay? Hm? Eventually…maybe. But we’d have to find out stuff, like whether there’s air on the dream moon.”
The elf woman returned and held her hand out to Zoë. “Come, Miss Forrest. I shall give you a gift. It will make it so that your companions shall not need to hold your hand to keep from falling back to the waking realm when you walk in the land of dreams.”
“How’s this going to work?” Zoë whipped her braid around, suspicious. The feather thwapped rhythmically.
“I will put a Rune upon your body—you may pick the place. These are the sacred Runes guarded by the World Tree. There will be pain, but only briefly. This Rune will allow you to make the dream stuff near you more solid.”
Zoë rocked back on her heels. “Pain versus not losing my friends, not falling into foreign kingdoms filled with demon worshippers, and not getting expelled. Done!”
Illondria took Zoë up the spiral staircase. There was a blood curdling scream. Rachel clutched the back of a chair. Siggy popped the strangely-cheery marshmallow into his mouth.
While chewing the gooey, sugar-treat, he mumbled, “Y-u scre-med like ’at, too.”
“Hey, what about me?” Lucky watched with large, liquidy, puppy eyes as his master chewed.
“Oh, sorry, Luck.” Sigfried took out a Snickers bar with a bite taken out of it. He stuck it in the blue-green fairy flame for half a minute and then tossed it to Lucky. The dragon swallowed it in one gulp and then burped with satisfaction.
Footsteps on the staircase. The tall elf woman glided back down, followed by a pale Zoë who was holding the right side of her stomach.
“Miss Elf,” Rachel curtsied politely—she felt too shy to call the great woman by her name, “do you know if there is a temple to Saturn anywhere in the world? Or whether the demon who wishes to summon him up will have to consecrate a new one?”
“A temple to Saturn?” Something like fear moved behind the stars that served the tall, graceful being for pupils. “No. Not that are standing. He was overthrown.”
“So…if someone wanted one, they’d need to consecrate the ground first, on the dark of the moon, right?”
“You mean defile,”—the Elf drew herself up. She seemed to tower above the rest of them, vast and terrible in her majesty—“not consecrate. They would need to defile the ground with the blood of a loved one, probably a youth or child.” She shuddered. “’Tis a vile ceremony. Why do you ask?”
“Some lesser demon wants to call up the demon who was also named Saturn.”
“She means Muldoon or Memphis? Something like that,” volunteered Sigfried, trying to lick the sticky marshmallow innards off the several-thousand-dollar ruby on the tip of his wand.
“I know of whom she speaks.” Illondria’s voice was soft like a distant wind. “Please, never say his name. Especially here.”
“They are trying to summon him,” Rachel said worriedly.
The elf woman lay a comforting hand on Rachel’s arm. “Fear not, little one. There’s no danger of his coming.”
“Then he is not dangerous?” Rachel asked hopefully.
“Oh, he’s dangerous! He is the most dangerous of them all, save one. But he is…” the elf woman glanced up and to the south, though whether she was looking at the polished wood of the chamber wall, into her dreams, or beyond to some distant land or vision, Rachel could not tell, “…otherwise occupied. He will not come.”
“He almost came at Beaumont. He threw Siggy from the tower.”
“What?” The elven woman’s skin grew several shades less luminescent, as if her blood carried a glow that diminished when it ran from her face. “No. It must not be! You are certain?”
R
achel nodded. Illondria whispered something under her breath. Recalling several times, Rachel was nearly certain she had said: “Phanuel’s sacrifice cannot have been in vain!”
“Who is Phanuel?” Rachel asked curiously.
The elf woman gave her a very kind smile. “Someone you would have liked very much.”
“Why is this particular demon so dangerous?” asked Zoë.
“He must be stopped at all costs!” cried Rachel, remembering the moment in the tower. The pain rose again in her chest.
“At all costs!” echoed Sigfried, his eyes like burning coals.
“Do not let his corruption touch you, children.” The elf woman looked at them with some concern. She stared off to the south again, as if lost in thought. Turning back to Zoë, she said, “All demons are dangerous, because they bring with them evil and destruction. But many of them are limited in the accomplishment of their evil by their own vices. Their devotion to their besetting sin, be it anger, lust, or sloth, interferes with their ability to carry out their fiendish plans. Sooner or later, their own weaknesses draw them away from their intended path. But there are two to whom this does not apply: the Prince of Darkness and the Prince of the Earth.
“We will not speak of the Prince of Darkness.” The Elf shuddered like a willow in a gale. “The one you speak of is known as the Prince of the Earth. He is different from the others. He is clever, supremely intelligent. And his besetting sin is desperation—and his resulting ruthlessness served rather than impeded his cleverness.
“To this end, the Prince of Darkness made this one the governor of the fallen material world. Among his other infernal inventions, the Prince of the Earth invented the Tyranny of Time, the force that makes it so that all things mortal run down and go bad and grow old. From that, he introduced the idea that a bad thing done now might produce a good thing in the future. He called this idea: sacrifice.
“In the early days, eons ago, when he truly was the Prince of the Earth, and all the worlds of Sideria bowed to him, he would not even send rain unless the sacrifices had been performed to his satisfaction. He was a tyrannical ruler. He even ate his own children, lest they threaten his reign. Eventually, all the powers—those Below, those Above, and those in the Twilight Lands—joined and overthrew him.
“But even that was not enough to stop what he had put into motion. In the long run, to end the Tyranny of Time called sacrifice, the One on High was required to send—” the elf woman’s voice suddenly cut off. “But we are not allowed to speak of that here.”
“Why not?” Siggy scowled. “Why not speak about things that are true? Who is stopping us?” He pulled out his wand, as if he planned to attack the one doing the stopping.
Rachel considered what they had just learned. Stepping forward, she lay a hand on the elf woman’s arm. “Tell me, are we behind some kind of enemy lines? In the territory of the demons, perhaps?”
The elf woman tilted her head thoughtfully and then nodded. “You might put it that way, little one.”
Chapter Nineteen:
One Classy Lady
Rachel, Sigfried, Lucky, and Zoë made their way back to campus through the dreamlands. The Rune worked just as the Elf had predicted. The others were able to let go of Zoë’s hand without falling. They arrived back on campus filled of ideas for new experiments, but Nastasia and Valerie both had too much homework to participate. Further dreamland experiments were put off for another day.
A few days later, Rachel had a free period between the end of her classes and when she had to report to the gym to perform her job as Mr. Chanson’s assistant. Stopping by the mail room, she found a package waiting for her that was almost as big as she was. It proved to be light, however, so she was able to awkwardly maneuver it onto her steeplechaser and take it up the stairs, outside, and to the roof of Roanoke Hall. There, she opened the window of the secret place she had found the day of the jumbo jet and slipped inside with her prize.
Inside was a hexagonal room containing a cream-and-rose couch, an end table, and a throw rug. Over the last few weeks, she had aired it out and beaten the sofa cushions, so the place was no longer as dusty as it had once been. Now, she eagerly ripped open the brown paper and pulled out a peach damask slipcover, a large cream and peach quilted comforter, and two giant satiny throw pillows, creamy with bright iridescent blue and green peacocks whose tails trailed off the pillows.
Eagerly, she slid on the slipcover, puffed up the throw pillows, placed them in the corners of the sofa, and wrapped herself in the comforter. Then she threw herself onto the cushions of the couch and lay in warmth and comfort.
She lazily opened the letter that had accompanied the items she had requested from home. In it was a breezy note from her mother, telling her that all was well and asking about her classes and her friends. At the bottom was a P.S. that read: Your Father sends his love.
Rachel stared at the line, trying very hard to feel grateful. Instead, a hard spot about the size of an almond formed in her throat and would not be dislodged, no matter how many times she swallowed.
He was not coming.
If he had been planning to come, she would have heard from him by now. He would have included a message saying when he would arrive. He was not coming. He did not care about hearing her version of the events. Now there was no one to whom she could tell the truth.
Well, there was Gaius, of course. He might even know about her memory by now, if Topher had told him. And she really wanted to tell Gaius everything as soon as she felt it was the right time, but…
It was not the same.
For one thing, Gaius was not in a position to stop the demon.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a nasty little voice whispered: Father would have been here already if it had been Sandra. Rachel bit her lip and pushed that voice away. But for the first time in her life, she felt a real sympathy for the wild antics of her sister Laurel.
She lay there staring at the ceiling, which was a pale gold marred by several large cracks, feeling glum. But it was too nice a day to waste feeling sad. She wanted to appreciate the new improvements to her hideaway in peace. To cheer herself, she let her thoughts drift. What fun it would be to bring Gaius up here. Would he like her private domain? Would he kiss her? Might they snuggle together, curled up like puppies? Would he try something…untoward…if she curled up with him like that? Or was John Darling correct, that she just was not desirable enough to tempt an older boy?
Closing her eyes, she imagined that she was older—much older, like fifteen or sixteen! By then, she was sure to be shapely like the other women in her family, even though she might not be much taller. She was only a few inches shorter than her mother and gaining on her quickly. She imagined coming back from summer vacation all mature and beautiful and watching Gaius’s eyes widen when he saw her.
That would feel very nice.
They would still be together by then, of course. They were going to stay together forever and have six children, five great sorcerers and a librarian. Or maybe it should be four great sorcerers, a librarian, and a farmer, to take over Gaius’s family farm. Gaius’s father would probably appreciate that. She imagined the eight of them—herself, Gaius, and the flock of children, the littlest one toddling behind on his short legs—walking along the moors, watching cows in a field.
Or, what if they were no longer together? What if that girl from Drake, Tess Dauntless, got him back—if they ever had been dating. No one could tell her for sure. But everyone agreed that Tess wanted to steal Gaius from Rachel. Salome had told her that the kids in Drake were all certain it was just a matter of time.
Rachel tried to imagine how she might feel, coming back to school at fifteen to discover Gaius on the arm of that blonde schemer—the pain of betrayal, the feeling of loneliness, the knowledge that she would never love again.
She imagined explaining that to Von Dread, when he returned to visit the campus—he would have graduated by then—and tried to press his claim again. (This fantasy, of
course, being a sequel to her last one.) She imagined placing her hand over her aching heart and turning her head away, unable to so much as look at him.
In her daydream, Von Dread leaned down and kissed her. She was no longer the girlfriend of his lieutenant, after all. There was nothing to stop him from seizing what he desired. He scooped her up and laid her down beside him in a meadow of sweet-smelling herbs. As his mouth crushed hers, her lips parted, and she gasped softly, yielding to his kiss. His fingers moved across her side and stomach, leaving a trail of fire. His hand slid upward, cupping her…
No!
No, no, no, no, no!
Rachel squealed and sat up.
Why did these kinds of thoughts only ever attach themselves to Dread?
Pulling the comforter around her, she sat up on the couch and forced her imagination back to safer territory.
• • •
Flying class went well. The students were making good progress. Sakura was now handling her broom as well as the rest of them, which still caused Rachel’s heart to flutter oddly. How strange that Sakura’s current improvement was because of the loss of a talent that created order and, thus, interfered with magic, a talent the Raven had been forced to remove from her.
Hildy was flying so well that Mr. Chanson declared her a flier. She immediately joined her team for Track and Broom. At Roanoke, all freshmen were assigned to intramural sports teams. The boys teams were the Marauders, the Spartans, the Druids, and the Guardians. The girls teams were Amazons, the Nymphs, the Maenads, and the Furies. Students remained on their assigned teams for a year. At the beginning of sophomore year, they were assigned to new teams by draft, with the winning team of the previous year getting the first pick of the incoming sophomores. Students then remained a part of their new team for the rest of their lives. Even as adults, alumni were welcome to return and play for their teams—though they seldom did. Hildy was a Fury, and the team cheered when she joined them. Rachel herself had been assigned to the Maenads, but she had never shown up for a game.
Rachel and the Many-Splendored Dreamland (The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 3) Page 25