The Farthest Gate (The White Rose Book 1) (10 page)

5.
ANGELIQUE

I sheathed my blade, attached the thorn whip to my belt, and approached Azrael
who knelt, submerged in melancholy, slumped forward, head hanging.  Floating out of the black mists within his cloak, his hands gripped the street, digging in.  The brick shattered.

I jumped
, and was drawn forward as if tightening cords connected our hearts.  I stopped directly in front of him, searching for words to comfort an angel.

He said,
“I am sorry.  It is my fault.  You had his weapon in your hands … and now…” he continued grinding fragments into gravel, “I did not do enough, and now our hope is gone.”

I
knelt and stared into the dimmed fire of his eye.  Why he agonized over my decisions, I could not guess, but it pained me to see him like this.  He had faced down the son of Death on my behalf.  I owed Azrael sympathy, a friend’s attention, and what little solace I could give.  I covered his hands with mine.

“Nothing is your fault
.  You’ve been my friend.  You are my friend.  My heart still clings to hope. I will save my Phillippe.  I have not lost faith, and God willing, I shall not.”

His hooded head lifted.  White-fire eyes stared out of shadow.  “You do not know … and I can not tell you.  I promised…”

I straightened and stared, arms outstretched in invitation.  When words are empty echoes, a woman’s softness alone can heal.

His fingers uprooted from shattered brick
and the soil underneath.  Like a black cloud, he drifted over me, his ice-cold presence chilling my marrow.

I pulled him close, losing all warmth and light as his cloak wrapped us both in darkest night. 
It seemed to me, I could hear both our hearts, keeping the same rhythm.  Unlike before, when I had used him as a living gateway, he remained solid.  I touched the hard sleek muscles of his back, hugging him tight.

His arms folded across my back, crushing us together.

I felt sharp embarrassment—he was unclothed in his shadows, shuddering with obscure passions that I a human might never fully understand.  Yet I smiled, damning propriety until he regained composure and pulled away.

With the retreat of his cloak, I discovered that we were not where we had been.  The streets were gone.  The buildings of the city enclosed us, but were distant, indistinct shadows.  We occupied a woodland path in some kind of preserve.

“Where have you brought me?” I asked.

“The
third ring on your game board.”  His answer was soft as a butterfly’s kiss.  “Your last duel has earned you the right to advance this far.”

Too much distance lay ahead for me to celebrate such a small
victory, but I was grateful.  “What is this place?”

“It has several names, but I call it the Forest of Angels.”

“There are angels here, besides you?”

“Of a sort.  I come here to help the lost and abandoned.”

I did not like the sound of that. 

We traveled stone paths that
would have been white if not for the spoiled light of this world.  The black iron lampposts we passed only deepened the sickly green.  The trees to either side of us sloughed feathery strips of bark for the wind to push about.  Serpentine branches attenuated into extinction with no leaves adorning them.  Only a matting of shed bark lay in drifts underneath.  I did not know if this was natural, or if the trees were blighted by the eternal twilight, but I thought it sad that this was what passed for beauty in this City of the Dead.

The woodland thinned as we approached a barren, slate-gray expanse.  It took several long moments to be sure that this body was truly water, untroubled by any wind.  I could not see the opposite shoreline since a haze of fog crawled over the water.  The distant towers of the city seemed to float on cloud
s.

A honey-tressed little girl, dressed in a faded charcoal shift, squatted by the shore.  She nudged away a tiny paper sailboat that drifted out of arm’s reach and came to a stop beside several others.  As we neared, she stood and stared at the clustered armada, sighing gently at their failure to get any farther.

“Angelique,” Azrael called.

The girl, no more than nine or ten, whipped around at the sound of his soft voice.  Her sad face ignited with a smile.  Her eyes sparkled.  “Azrael, you are back!”  She ran and flung herself into his cloak, hugging his shadow
, unmindful of the bitter cold of his embrace. 

“I always keep my promises,” he said.

“I knew you would come,” she cried.  “The others all went on, but I waited.”    

The others?  Was she one of the
angels
he mentioned?  Was this park haunted by orphan children turning feral?

Pulling away, the girl hopped like a bunny in her excitement.  “Do a trick for me!” she pleaded.

“But of course!”  Azrael scooped up a handful of slate blue, water-smoothed stones from the bank.  Theatrically, he waved his free hand over them, composing a mystic spell.

Shimmer, glimmer—kisses of light,

Dance in my hand
—tears of the night.
 

He drew the rocks into his cloak and immediately thrust them forth again.  His head dipped so his white-fire eyes could bring out the true color of the sapphires, opals, and rubies he now held.  His hand tilted.  Angelique caught the sparkling cascade with small, cupped fingers.  Her eyes widened with wonder and joy as she stuffed the treasure into one sleeve, making it hang heavily.  She gripped the cuff tightly, hiding the excess material in her fist so that the clacking stones could not spill as her arm fell to the side.

He smiled.  “You know, of course, that the jewels will be common stones by morning.”

The little girl grinned back.  “Yes, but I will enjoy them while they last!”  She skipped away, then turned and raised her voice, “I want to show the others.”

Azrael followed and I hurried to keep by his side. 

I realized something. “There never will be a morning for her in this place.”  I stared at his profile.  “The stones will not change at all, will they?”

The dark angel’s voice spiked as he pretended realization.  “Why, you are right!  Hopefully, she will not be too disappointed.”

We followed the leaden curve of water, passing white marble benches with stylized rose and leaf patterns engraved into the seats.  My companion noticed my interest in the motif.  “This place was named for you,” he said, “Queen’s Park.”

“Sadly, I am no queen.”
  With such authority, I could command Phillippe’s release.

“The White Rose is the Bride of Death, Queen of Shades, and Mistress of Shadows.  You are royalty here if nowhere else.
  The dead who live here have been praying for your return.”

I grew somber at his words.  “I have no desire to rule any part of this place.  Once my goal is achieved, I shall set this ring aside.”

He stopped me with an icy hand on my arm.  Incandescent eyes stabbed at me.  “I hope you can.  Some burdens demand to be carried.  I have seen alchemies of the soul brought on by these rings.  Pilgrims come here playing a role, only to become their role in time.  Few escape.”

His words stirred unease in me, but what could I do?  Phillippe’s need outweighed all risk.  It was that simple.
  “I am not concerned.  I will be one of those few.”

Angelique chided us from the distance.  “Hurry, you will fall behind!  It is not much farther!” 

I set aside misgivings as useless things, and followed with an easy stride.  “What is not far?” 

Gliding along beside me, Azrael withdrew into moody silence.  I thought he was not going to answer, but his whisper-soft voice returned.  “Martyr’s Field, the children are drawn there by the thinnest of hopes, prodded by the barbs of their need.”

I saw a host of children gathered ahead, heads craning upward.  My blood chilled.  Horror thickened in my mind as I followed their gazes up to tall crosses that held women, young and old, by the score.  Nailed hands bled freely, christening the children with a red rain.  Most terrible of all were the faces of the crucified—peaceful, smiling in rapture, eyes bright with joy.

“Who did that to them?” I demanded.

Azrael’s voice grew colder, echoing across some newly opened gulf.  “They did it to themselves.  Some people are only happy when making a dramatic show of their sacrifices.  The self-forsaken are the most selfish of all.”

Dragged forward by ghastly fascination, I saw what he meant.  The women hung suspended in their suffering, blind and deaf to the clamoring children at their feet that begged for attention.

One dark-haired boy beat on a timber’s base, his face ugly from crying.  “Please,” he begged, “I need a mother!” 

Sated with misery, none of the crucified bothered to respond.

My heart wrenched in protest.  “This is horrible.”

“Of course it is,” Azrael said.  “That is why I give the children what time I can spare.”

“Are there no families in the city that can take in an extra child?  Has this damned city no charity anywhere?”

“Only the most self-serving kind.  For too many, death is the end of love.  These children, unloved and abandoned in life and here as well, are safer within this sanctuary.  There are those that hunt them in the streets.  But hunters cannot come here.  The last White Rose decreed this place a sanctuary before she returned to your world.”

“My grandmother?”

Azrael nodded.

I watched Angelique pull a few friends away, dumping her treasure onto the street to show the pretty splendor.  The other children snatched up the brilliant stones, hurling them in anger at the martyred.  As far as I could tell, the pelting only added to the pleasure of the crucified.  I could not watch such dark misery any longer, wondering how much of it afflicted my son.  Swallowing a sob, I ran on, skirting the lake.

My mad dash carried me to a landing where I found a lamppost to cling to.  I slid down the pole and collapsed in a despondent heap.  Copious tears spotted the boardwalk in my shadow.  Grief was all I had to offer the souls trapped in this Necropolis,
and it was not enough—for them or me.  I faced the awful truth; this city was poison, killing my heart in tiny increments.  I might not survive long enough to do Phillippe any good.

Too much
… it was all too much for me, rising in a wave to overwhelm me.

“Celeste.”

I heard my name on Azrael’s gentle lips, but I could not look at him.  I felt him settle by me like a crow on the battlefield.  I closed my eyes.

He brushed his fingers through my hair.  “Please, Celeste, tell me you have not broken.”

I cannot.  I have.

“Say something,” he begged.  “You are scaring me.”

I scare myself more.

“Celeste, it will be all right.”

I found my voice, but could barely hear it.  “How can you say that?”

“Because you always rise from weakness to greater strength
—it is what I love about you.”

My eyes snapped open. 
“You love ... me?  I felt elf-shot by his admission, dizzy and off balance.  Needing time to recover, I shoved the matter aside for later, as a ferry docked at the end of the landing.  It had no mast or guide rope, but moved through some mysterious process.  Allowing intrigue to bring me to firmer ground, I sat up and dried my eyes.

Azrael rose, drawing me along. 

Wearing a leather apron tied over sweat-stained clothing, a bear of a man stepped onto the dock and tied a mooring line to a pylon.  His arms were massive, heavy with a dense muscular development unseen elsewhere on his body.  He seemed more blacksmith than sailor.  His black beard bristled as he smiled a greeting, passing us by. 

His brisk pace swept him toward Martyr’s Field, until Angelique came abreast.  The blacksmith and the little girl engaged in discussion.  The man seemed to be urging some course of action.  Angelique did her bunny hopping again, her face transfigured by anticipation.

“Does he want her?” I asked.  “Will she be loved and cared for?”

“She will.”  Azrael’s grim manner pricked like a thorn. 

“I’m weary of half-truths.  Tell me the rest.”

“Neither of us can interfere with him.  He is the Keeper of the Engines, the Master of Gears.  He answers only to the Gamesman.  We should go now.”

My tone sharpened, “I will interfere with whoever needs it.  I want to know what will happen to Angelique.”

The girl approached in the company of this Keeper. 

“He offers her a place of service where she will be cared for and given a purpose,” Azrael insisted. 

“Then why is there anger in your voice?” I asked.