Midnight Never Come (37 page)

The chamber was half-empty before he finished; most of those who remained were bent over or sagged against the walls, looking sick. Only a few remained untouched; those, he surmised, had eaten of mortal food recently. But even they did not look happy.

Nor did Invidiana. She, for the first time, was angry.

He tried again, this time in a different vein, dredging up faded memories of prayers heard from prisoners and recusants.
“Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum . . .”

This time even he felt its force. The hall trembled around him; its splendor dimmed, as if he could see through the marble and onyx and crystal to plain rock and wood and dirt, and all the fae stood clad in rags.

Then something slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the floor and driving all breath from him. His Catholic prayer ended in a grunt. A voice spoke above him, one he knew too well, even though he had heard scarcely a dozen words from it. “Should I cut out his tongue?” Achilles asked.

“No.” If the Latin form had shaken Invidiana, she gave no sign. “We may yet need him to speak. But stop his mouth, so he may utter no more blasphemies.”

A wad of fabric was shoved into Deven’s mouth and bound into place. His thirst increased instantly as every remaining bit of moisture went into the cloth.

But his mind was hardly on that. Instead he was thinking of what he had seen, in that instant before Achilles took him down.

Invidiana’s throne sat beneath a canopy of estate, against the far wall. Under the force of his prayer, it seemed for a moment that it masked an opening, and that something lay in the recess behind it.

What use he could make of that knowledge, he did not know. But with his voice taken away, knowledge was his only remaining weapon.

M
ORTLAKE
, S
URREY
:
May 8, 1590

“You are mad,” Lune said.

“Perhaps.” Dee seemed undisturbed by the possibility; no doubt he had been accused of it often enough. “But children are ideal for scrying; children, and those who suffer some affliction of the mind. Kelley was an unstable man — well, perhaps that is no recommendation, if in truth he did naught but deceive me. Nonetheless. The best scryers are those whose minds are not too shackled by notions of possibility and impossibility.”

“You yourself, then.”

He shook his head. “I am too old, too settled in my ways. My son has shown no aptitude for it, and we have no time to find another.”

Lune took a slow breath, as if it would banish her feeling that all this had taken a wrong turn somewhere. “But if you question whether you have ever spoken with an angel before, what under the sun and moon makes you believe one will answer to a
faerie
?”

They were in his most private workroom, with strict orders to his surprisingly large family that under no circumstances were they to be disturbed. Lune hoped it would be so; at Dee’s command, she had eaten no food of any kind since the previous day — which meant no mortal bread.

He knew quite well what that meant, for she had told him. At great length, when she began to understand what he had in mind. And that was
before
he voiced his decision to use her as his scryer.

The philosopher shook his head again. “You misunderstand the operation of this work. Though you will be a part of it, certainly, your role will be to perceive, and to tell me what you see and hear. The calling is mine to perform. I have been in fasting and prayer these three days, for I intended to try again with my son; I have purified myself, so that I might be fit for such action. The angel — if indeed one comes — will come at my call.”

Now she understood the fasting. But prayer? “I have not made such thorough preparations.”

The reminder dimmed his enthusiasm. “Indeed. And if this fails, then we will try again, three days from now. But you believe time to be of the essence.”

Invidiana had the patience of a spider; she would wait three years if it served her purpose. But the longer Deven remained in the Onyx Hall, the greater the likelihood that the Queen would kill him — or worse.

Worse
could take many forms. Some of them were the mirror image of what Lune risked now. Baptism destroyed a fae spirit, rendering it no more than mortal henceforth. Dee had not suggested that rite, but who knew what effect this “angelic action” would have?

That frightened her more than anything. Fae could be slain; they warred directly with one another so rarely because children were even more rare. But death could happen. Nor did anyone know what if anything lay beyond it, though faerie philosophers debated the question even as their human counterparts did. The uncertainty frightened Lune less than the certainty of human transformation. ’Twas one thing to draw close to them, to bask in the warmth of their mortal light. To
be
one . . .

She had already made her choice. She could not unmake it now.

Lune said, “Then tell me what I must do.”

Dee took her by the hand and led her into a tiny chapel that adjoined his workroom. “Kneel with me,” he said, “and pray.”

Her exposed faerie nature felt terrifyingly vulnerable. With mortal bread shielding her, she could mouth words of piety like any human. But now?

He offered her a kindly smile. If her alien appearance disturbed him, he had long since ceased to show it. “You need not fear. Disregard the words you have heard others say — Catholic and Protestant alike. The Almighty hears the sentiment, not the form.”

“What kind of Christian are you?” Lune asked, half in astonishment, half to stall for time.

“One who believes charity and love to be the foremost Christian virtues, and the foundation of the true Church, that lies beyond even the deepest schism of doctrine.” His knobbled hand pressed gently on her shoulder, guiding her to her knees. “Speak in love and charity, and you will be heard.”

Lune gazed up at the cross that stood on the chapel’s wall. It was a simple cross, no crucifix with a tormented Christ upon it; that made it easier. And the symbol itself did not disturb her — not here, not now. Dee believed what he said, with all his heart. Without a will to guide it against her, the cross was no threat.

Speak in love and charity, he had said.

Lune clasped her hands, bent her head, and prayed.

The words came out hesitantly at first, then more fluidly. She wasn’t sure whether she spoke them aloud, or only in her mind. Some seemed not even to be words: just thoughts, concepts, inarticulate fears, and longings, set out first in the manner of a bargain —
help me, and I will work on your behalf
— then as justifications, defenses, an apology for her faerie nature.
I know not what I am, in the greater scope of this world; whether I be fallen angel, ancient race, unwitting devil, or something mortals dream not of. I do not call myself Christian, nor do I promise myself to you. But would you let this evil persist, simply because
I
am the one who works against it? Does a good deed cease to be good, when done by a heathen spirit?

At the last, a wordless plea. Invidiana — Suspiria — had taken this battle into territory foreign to Lune. Adrift, lost in a world more alien than the undersea realm, she could not persevere without aid.

So far did she pour herself into it, she forgot this was preparation only. She jerked in surprise when Dee touched her shoulder again. “Come,” he said, rising. “Now we make our attempt.”

The workroom held little: a shelf with a few battered, much-used books. A covered mirror. A table in the center, whose legs, Lune saw, rested upon wax rondels intricately carved with symbols. A drape of red silk covered the tabletop and something else, round and flat.

Upon that concealed object, Dee placed a crystalline sphere, then stepped back. “Please, be seated.”

Lune settled herself gingerly on the edge of a chair he set facing the sphere.

“I will speak the invocation,” he said, picking up one of the books. Another bound volume sat nearby, open to a blank page; she glimpsed scrawled handwriting on the opposite leaf, that was evidently his notes, for he had ink and a quill set out as well.

She wet her lips. “And I?”

“Gaze into the stone,” he said. “Focus your mind, as you did when you prayed. Let your breathing become easy. If you see aught, tell me; if any being speaks to you, relate its words.” He smiled at her once more. “Do not fear evil spirits. Purity of purpose, and the formulas I speak, will protect us.”

He did not sound as certain as he might have, and his hand tightened over the book he held, as if it were a talisman. But Lune was past the point of protest; she simply nodded, and turned her attention to the crystal.

John Dee began to speak.

The first syllables sent a shiver down her spine. She had expected English, or Latin; perhaps Hebrew. The words he spoke were none of these, nor any language she had ever heard. Strange as they were, yet they reverberated in her bones, as if the sense of them hovered just at the edge of her grasp. Did she but concentrate, she might understand them, though she had never heard them before.

The words rolled on and on, in a sonorous, ceaseless chant. He supplicated the Creator, Lune sensed, extolling the glory of Heaven and its Lord, describing the intricate structure of the world, from the pure realms of God down to the lowliest part of nature. And for a brief span she perceived it as if through his eyes: a beautifully mathematical cosmos, filled with pattern, correspondence, connection, like the most finely made mechanical device, beyond the power of any mind save God’s to apprehend in its entirety, but appreciable through the study of its parts.

To this, he had devoted his life. To understanding the greatest work of God.

In that moment, all the aimless, immortal ages of her life seemed by comparison to be flat and without purpose.

And then she felt suffused by a radiance like that of the moon, and her lips parted; she spoke without thinking. “Something comes.”

Dee’s invocation had finished, she realized, but how much time had passed, she did not know. A soft scratching reached her ears: his quill upon paper. “What do you see?”

“Nothing.” The sphere filled her vision; how long since she had last blinked?

“Speak to it.”

What should she say? Her mind was roaringly empty of words. Lune groped for something, anything. “-We — I — most humbly beseech your power, your aid. The Queen of the Onyx Court has formed a pact with Hell. Only with your power may it be broken. Will you not help us?”

Then she gasped, for the crystal vanished; she saw instead a figure, its form both perfect and undefinable. The table was gone, the chair was gone; she stood in an empty space before the terrible glory of the angel, and sank to her knees without thinking, in respect and supplication.

As if from a great distance, she heard Dee utter one word, his own voice trembling in awe.
“Anael.”

Her spirit lay exposed, helpless, before the angel’s shining might. With but a thought, it could destroy her, strip all faerie enchantment from her being, leave her nothing more than a mortal remnant, forever parted from the world that had been hers. She was no great legend of Faerie to defend herself against such, and she had laid herself open to this power of her own free will.

All that defended her now was, as Dee had said, charity and love.

She trembled as the figure drew closer. The strength might have crushed her, but instead it held her, like a fragile bird, in the palm of its hand. Lune felt lips press against hers, and the cool radiance flooded her body; then they were gone.

“Bear thou this kiss to him thou lovest,”
the angel Anael said, its words the true and pure form of the language Dee had spoken, a force of beauty almost too much to bear.

Then the light receded. She was in her chair; the crystal was before her; they were alone once more in the room.

Dee murmured a closing benediction, and sank back into his own chair, from which he had risen without her seeing. The notebook sat next to him, hardly touched.

Lune’s eyes met the philosopher’s, and saw her own shock echoed there.

He, who had no gift for seeing, had seen something. And he knew, as she did, that it was a true angelic presence, and it had answered her plea.

Bear thou this kiss to him thou lovest.

She had made that choice. What it meant, she did not know; she had never given her heart before. How a kiss would aid her, she could not imagine. It seemed a weak weapon against Invidiana.

But it was Heaven’s response to her plea. For Michael Deven’s sake, she would go into the Onyx Hall, and somehow win her way through to him. She would bring him Anael’s kiss.

What happened after that was in God’s hands.

T
HE
A
NGEL
I
NN
, I
SLINGTON
:
May 8, 1590

“She must be distracted,” Lune said. “Else she will place all her knights and guardsmen and other resources between me and Deven, and I will stand no hope of reaching him. They will kill me, or they will bind me and drag me before her; either way, I will not be able to do what I must.”

The Goodemeades did not question that part of it. Lune had told them in brief terms of what had passed in Mortlake — brief not because she wished to hide anything from them, but because she had few words to describe it. Their eyes had gone round with awe, and they treated her now with a reverent and slightly fearful respect that unnerved her.

Not so much respect, though, that they didn’t question certain things. “My lady,” Gertrude said, “she will be expecting you to do exactly that. You have not come back, which means you know of your peril. If you are not simply to walk into her claws, then you must try to draw her attention away. But she will recognize any diversion as just that — and ignore it.”

From across the rose-guarded room, Rosamund, who had been silent for several minutes, spoke up. “Unless the diversion is something she cannot ignore.”

“The only thing she could not ignore would be —”

“A real threat,” Lune said.