Faerie Lord

Ninety-Seven

Henry felt like an iron filing in the presence of a magnet. He was frightened, but he took a small step forward. The others must have felt the same, for they moved blankly alongside him. The creature in the cage was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It had the shape of a man, but far taller – nearly eight feet – so that it stooped to fit into the cage. It was muscled like a human torso, but there any resemblance ended.

The angel shone. Every square inch of its skin fluoresced the way things did under ultraviolet light. But beyond that, it glowed like some gigantic lamp, emitting a dense white light that hurt the eyes if you looked at it too long. But even that was not the strangest thing. The strangest thing was its wings.

Henry had seen angel wings before, lots of them. His books were full of them when he studied History of Art and he’d even seen them carved in marble that time his mother dragged the family on a cultural tour of Britain’s cathedrals. But those wings were nothing like these. The artists and sculptors had all visualised great white feathered birdy things, as if angels had the shoulder muscles to fly like an eagle. The wings Henry was looking at now were nothing like that. They weren’t feathered and they weren’t even white. In fact, in a peculiar way, they didn’t seem to be there at all.

Henry blinked. The angel’s wings stretched out behind him in shimmering fans of radiant energy that sparkled violet and writhed like the aurora borealis. They were probably the most beautiful things he had ever seen in his life. He’d never been a particularly religious boy, but there was something about those wings that made him want to fall down on his knees and worship.

Blue took another step forward with Lorquin at her side and Henry’s urge to worship suddenly evaporated. ‘Careful!’ he hissed in the sort of whisper you always felt you had to use inside a church. Then, when they took no notice, he said sharply and more loudly, ‘Don’t get too close!’ His stomach had knotted. For some reason he was convinced the angel was every bit as dangerous as the dragon.

Blue ignored him as usual. She had a curiously vacant smile on her face and her eyes were wide. Lorquin looked even more peculiar. His face was ecstatic, but his eyes were utterly blank. Together they took another step forward so that now they were no more than a few feet from the cage.

The angel moved its position and the sweep of energy from those weird wings flowed outward to envelop Blue and Lorquin.

‘Blue!’ Henry shouted in sudden alarm.

Blue changed. Henry watched it happen. In an eye blink she was a mature woman, her hair streaked with grey, the first clear signs of furrows on her brow. Then just as suddenly she was old – not old the way Pyrgus was old when Henry saw him on Mr Fogarty’s lawn, but really old, like Mr Fogarty himself or Madame Cardui. She still stood upright and there was the familiar hint of arrogance in the tilt of her head, but otherwise she was hardly recognisable.

‘Blue!’ Henry screamed again.

The change in Lorquin was, if anything, even more spectacular. He looked across at Henry and gave his bright, familiar smile. But it was a smile on the face of a man now, handsome, tall and broad and proud. It was the smile of a hero who had fought hard and seen much.

Then the wings swept back and folded and suddenly Blue was Blue again and Lorquin was a boy.

Henry heard his own voice shout, ‘Don’t go near the cage!’

Blue said quietly, ‘We must release him – he’s in pain.’

Of course the angel was in pain. He’d been confined in this cage – in this reality – unable to stand upright for weeks. But worse was the magic Brimstone had used to confine him: it burned the angel’s body like hot irons. Henry knew all this, but he didn’t know how he knew.

The angel turned its head and looked deep into his eyes.

‘We must release him,’ Blue said again.

The angel was talking to Henry, but talking without words. It was the strangest sensation, intimate and warm, like being with somebody and discovering you were in love. No wonder these creatures had been worshipped. Knowledge flowed from the angel’s mind into Henry’s own. No wonder they had been called Messengers.

Blue made to move forward again, but this time Henry was too quick for her. He darted forward and grabbed her arm, if you go any closer, it will kill you,’ he said soberly.

Blue looked at him blankly, then looked at the angel. ‘He wouldn’t harm me,’ she said, a little dreamily.

‘He doesn’t want to,’ Henry told her. ‘But he shouldn’t be in this reality. He distorts it, changes the flow of time. It’s worse when he moves those wings – they send currents out across the whole Realm – but if you get too close, it doesn’t matter whether he’s moving or not. Just being near him will kill you.’

The dreamy look vanished from Blue’s face. ‘How are we going to free him?’ she asked.

‘We’re not going to free him,’ Henry said. ‘I am.’

Blue caught on at once, ‘It won’t affect you because you’re from the Analogue World? This isn’t your reality, so you can get close to him without it killing you?’

Henry took a deep breath, ‘I think so.’ He hoped to heaven Blue would leave it at that, not ask any more questions.

‘Are you sure?’ Blue asked.

Henry let go of her arm. ‘Only one way to find out,’ he said. And walked towards the cage.