Page 93 of The Guardians of Dreamdark
When she arrived on the riverbank she was already unconscious. She’d sunk to her knees and slumped to the grass and she hadn’t opened her eyes since, not when Fade gathered her up in his paw and carried her through the sky, not when Bellatrix treated the wound on her shoulder, visioning healing glyphs, cleaning off the spatter of spider venom and plucking Gutsuck’s teeth out of her torn flesh. And not now, with Bellatrix by her side singing a ballad in Old Tongue and feeding teaspoons of cool water between her lips.
She was deep in dreams, her inner eyes open and tracing the miraculous patterns of the Tapestry’s weave. Her mind found rest as her body healed. It would be days or weeks before she’d wake.
Hungry for news that Magpie couldn’t give her, Bellatrix had sent Snoshti to Dreamdark to learn what had happened. The lady’s voice sounded peaceful as she sang, but her eyes darted anxiously to the windows, watching the sky shapes for one that might be Fade ferrying the hedge imp back across the canyon to her. But Fade didn’t come, and Bellatrix began to think that in all the desperately slow years she’d passed in this timeless place, these moments were the longest.
Her head was throbbing with anxiety when suddenly Snoshti bustled through the door.
“Good-imp,” said Bellatrix, surprised. “I didn’t see Fade coming. Did he carry you?”
“Neh, Lady, I’ve had a lift from another,” said Snoshti, and Bellatrix saw that her black eyes were sparkling.
“What is it, Snoshti? Have you brought news?”
“Aye. The Blackbringer is captured.”
“Blessings be!”
“And the Magruwen has returned to Issrin Ev.”
Bellatrix fell silent, eyes gleaming as a rush of emotion swept over her face. “He has?” she whispered, and when the imp nodded, she clenched closed her eyes to hold back tears. A single, shining drop escaped and slid down her cheek. “Then there is hope,” she said quietly.
“And Lady Bellatrix?” said Snoshti.
Bellatrix opened her eyes. Snoshti stepped aside and through the door came a faerie. The spoon in Bellatrix’s hand clattered to the floor.
The Ithuriel’s champion was an Ifrit prince, tall and beautiful and dark as ebony, with immense white moth wings and black braids crowned with a circlet of silver. In the doorway he stood absolutely still and stared at his bride.
A sound—a laugh, a sob—escaped Bellatrix’s lips, and Kipepeo cried out. They met in the air and clung to each other as the force of their flight spun them up toward the ceiling of the vaulted room. They laughed and sobbed, and their wings fanned and held them aloft and spun them as their cheeks pressed, tears mingled, and lips met.
Snoshti beamed and chortled. Circling the spire, Fade peered in through the moon windows and exhaled a cascade of fireworks. And in the vault of the sky the seraphim gathered to watch, and even such souls as they who had gone beyond all earthly concerns were moved by the embrace, and began to weep.
Kipepeo wasn’t the only one who came to the Moonlit Gardens that day. The elders of Dreamdark had managed to explain to all the gathered souls what had befallen them and had welcomed any who chose to stay. Some did, but many more chose the Gardens, unable to face a world from which their loved ones had been gone already for thousands of years.
A week passed, and the throng in Dreamdark thinned. The Rathersting hunted down escaped devils in the dark corners of the forest and found many of the sniveling, mild snags from the catacombs in Rome. These they put in the dungeon and fed on leftovers while they decided what to do with them, but as for the more fiendish devils, these they recaptured in bottles the Magruwen crafted for that purpose. They didn’t know how many still lurked in the great wood, and kept searching.
Talon, returning after dark from a day spent casting a human phantasm to guide the lost mannies to the hedge, found the crowd in the great hall composed mostly of Rathersting for the first time since the battle. He piled a plate with mushroom sandwiches and blackberry pie and plunked it down at the chief’s table. His father wrapped his arm around him and left it there, periodically squeezing his son’s shoulder or tousling his hair.Talon beamed and told his father stories as he ate, but as soon as he was done, he pushed back his chair and went to his room. All night his knitting needles could be heard clicking unsteadily as he maneuvered them with his bandaged hand. The dawning of the new age might occupy his days, but his nights were for creating, and he worked in secret with a single-mindedness that was driving him to exhaustion.
Orchidspike and Poppy worked side by side day after day, mending old wounds from the devil wars, administering potions and poultices, and reweaving all shapes of wings. The healer was each day more astonished by the lass’s gifts and each day more delighted with her sweet nature and surprising twinkling of mischief.
As for the young Rathersting warriors who took to offering the healer their help—something that had certainly never happened before—Orchidspike attributed that to Poppy’s uncommon loveliness. But her new apprentice seemed to have no mind for flirtation and paid the lads no heed at all.
At Hai Issrin Ev, the great work had begun. A tent camp had sprung up at the mouth of the Deeps as faeries and imps from across Dreamdark came to throw their energies into building the new temple. And folk and creatures began to arrive from farther afield, too. The Magruwen had given a message to the web-toed, eyeless imps who swim the labyrinth of dark springs underlying the world, and they carried word to hundreds of faerieholds that the Djinn King was returned tohis temple. Each day the news spread farther. From one hidden village and clanhold to the next, all across the world, wonder was blooming in the hearts of faeries.
They came day by day, pilgrims and artisans from other forests hauling the tools of their trade, the masons’ hammers and chisels, glaziers’ kilns, weavers’ looms, and many other things, too, and the new temple began to rise on the ruins of the old.
The Magruwen himself was often away. He’d forged two new pairs of knitting needles, one for Talon and one for himself, and with his own he’d followed the lad’s example and knit himself a disguise to cloak his fireproof skin. Now as a great horned owl he explored his world, learning it anew.
The falcon skin, meanwhile, was far from Dreamdark. The world’s only flying imp was skulking steadily back toward Rome to fetch his wheelbarrow from the catacombs, and he spread his own legend at every opportunity. He sang, “All through the silvery treetops he twirled, the first, and the only, winged imp in the world...”
Every creature he’d met throughout Dreamdark and Iskeri had been treated to wheezy songs of his flying adventures, though the songs, truth be told, were more numerous than the adventures. Though he’d never admit it, deep in his crusty heart Batch missed the faerie’s floating spells and being hauled through the air by crows, and the Djinn’s silver bat wings had not been forgotten, either. The falcon skin was a keen disguise, but the flying wasn’t working out exactly as Batch had hoped. Even if it hadn’t been unraveling, it was too much for his poorarms. After just a few short minutes of wing flapping they hung so heavy at his sides he could scarcely lift them to pick his nose! Mostly he scampered along, wheezing his glorious songs and dreaming of silver wings.
Still camped on the green above Snoshti’s village, the crows were no use to anyone. They didn’t even hunt down snags with the Rathersting but just huddled miserably around their fire, puffing smoke rings and waiting for their lass to come back to them.
They weren’t the only ones waiting. The Magruwen visited his champion in her dreams, but her friends weren’t so lucky. Like the crows, Poppy and Talon could only wait, though they put their energies into work instead of smoking and did a little better job of hiding their longing.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
When Magpie finally opened her eyes, Bellatrix was by her side. “Child of my heart,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
