The Tattooed Heart (22 page)

“Messenger,” Daniel said, sounding suddenly formal. “Your last duty was to prepare your apprentice to take over your role. It is clear that she is well prepared, strong enough and good enough, to do what she must. And thus, my very good friend, in Isthil's name, I free you.”

Ariadne reached for Messenger, but instinctively he drew back.

Daniel went to Messenger, stood very close to him, and in a gesture that sent my mind to memories of my own father, put his hand on the back of Messenger's neck and drew his head forward until their heads touched.

They stood like that for a few minutes, Messenger moved beyond any possibility of speech.

Then Daniel pushed him away, and with his left hand took Messenger's left hand. Reverently he slid off the ring of the Shrieking Face. But he did not remove the ring of Isthil.

Then, still holding Messenger's hand in his, he took Ariadne's hand and said, “Messenger, you have faithfully fulfilled your duty to Isthil and to the Heptarchy, and to the balance. Well done, my friend. Well done.”

Daniel clapped his hands briskly, looked a bit askance at me, and said, “This part may be a bit embarrassing.”

Suddenly Messenger's long black coat with its skull buttons was gone. And then the gray shirt. And then Messenger stood naked in the English sun, his body a nightmare in ink.

Then, one by one, the tattoos disappeared. There were dozens. Hundreds. An account book of pain
and misery, the scars of a long battle with evil. They faded . . . faded . . . and were gone. Until only the tattoo over Messenger's heart remained to fade slowly away.

Now Messenger stood clothed in stylish but somewhat dated garb, a wool suit and a narrow tie, the outfit I'd seen him wear so long ago in chronological years but so recent to me. He was handsome, that boy, very good-looking, but now it was a merely human beauty. Maybe that took some of the sting out of it for me. I don't think Ariadne saw any change at all. After all, she had known him first as a boy, and only briefly as a boy transformed by service to Isthil.

And then, grinning a huge sunny smile, Daniel brought Ariadne's hand together with Messenger's and said, “My friend and faithful servant: you are to be touched.”

Tentatively, disbelieving, ready to pull back, Messenger's hand and Ariadne's touched.

How am I to explain that moment? I felt so terribly bereft. I felt the weight of decades of loneliness to come. I felt a loss that nearly equaled what I had felt on losing my father. And yet my heart was so full of joy for him, for them. For life itself. I had been weeping, and now I
wept some more, but at the same time I completely forgot myself and grabbed Daniel's hand.

Oh, and was that ever a moment. The time I had accidentally touched Messenger had been a torrent of pain that still haunted my mind with images I must someday find a way to exorcise. But Daniel's touch was like opening a door on paradise.

I stared at him in astonishment and saw a creature like yet very unlike the low-key Daniel. He was light itself, gold and silver, sunlight and moonlight, and I saw within him multitudes, multitudes of those who, like Trent, and now, like Ariadne, had come through evil, through regret, through guilt and pain, to redemption, and acceptance, and joy.

Daniel held my hand for a while, letting me bask in that light, then with a wry smile he disengaged and was once more a young man in a hoodie, young and as old as time.

He looked at me very seriously and said, “We do terrible things to preserve the balance. We do it not just to ensure existence, but because existence can be very . . . nice.”

I laughed. “That was way past
nice
.”

He nodded. “Yes. Can be,” he said, nodding and smiling rather smugly. “Let us leave them. They have decisions to make. And I believe they want to kiss.”

“But I—”

“You will see him again. One more time.” Then, catching my eye, he said, “One more time.”

23

I WAS WRUNG OUT. I WAS EXHAUSTED. I HAD DONE and seen and felt too much.

I fell facedown on my bed and slept before dreams could catch up to me. I don't know how long I slept, but when I awoke it was with clear eyes and a sad heart.

He was in the kitchen. He had made coffee. And as I emerged I heard the sound of the toaster lever being pressed down. He was making me a toaster strudel.

A good-looking boy dressed in jeans and a white shirt and a leather jacket. He looked almost shy as he said, “Hello, Mara.”

“Messenger.”

He shook his head ruefully. “No longer.”

I noticed then that he had an accent. He'd never had one before, but now the
r
's were down in his throat.

“You look good.”

“I look like myself.”

“What happened to the suit?”

He shrugged. “We decided . . . I mean that, I was given a choice and we . . . We could be slipped back into our own time, or stay in this one. We chose to live in this time, to see the future together.”

“I'm happy for you,” I said, and I was, though my heart ached.

“I'm happy . . . we are happy . . . because of you.” The word “happy” came out as “appee.” “That was a very brave thing. It was an act of courage and . . .”

“And love,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said.

It should have been awkward, but somehow it wasn't. We stood silently together, and for once my silence was not impatience waiting for him to speak. When there is too much for words, silence says all. I was content for the moment just to share that silence with him.

At last he said, “If my heart had not already belonged to Ariadne . . .”

“Thank you.”

“You know what is to come next?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“We travel this time not with my powers or yours: Daniel summons us.”

I suppose I should have gotten used to sudden transitions, but I was still amazed, and I guessed that I might never entirely lose that wonder. We were gone from my abode and stood now in the Shamanvold, that hidden cavern decorated with soaring bas-reliefs of the Heptarchy. The golden tablets bearing the many strange names of messengers down through the ages towered above us.

The bas-relief stirred, and the image of Isthil, great and terrible Isthil, stepped from the stone and stood before us in what I can only call glory. We bowed our heads, not because we must but because no mortal can look upon her and not be moved.

“You have done well, Messenger,” She said.

Messenger seemed to shake, a tremor, quickly mastered.

“Your name I now inscribe upon the tablets that mark the service of each faithful messenger.”

Like some movie special effect, I saw letters traced by fire on the gold. But I had no time to peer more closely, for Isthil beckoned me and I went to her, moving like a sleepwalker.

“I give you this gift,” She said. She opened one hand and there lay the ring of the Shrieking Face. I shuddered seeing it, but I reached nevertheless and slipped it onto my finger.

“I give you this as well,” She said, and nodded at Messenger who, reluctantly I thought, slipped the ring of Isthil from his hand. He held it for a moment, looking at it resting in his palm, and then with two fingers slid it onto my finger. He did not touch me in doing so. I understood.

“In my service you will suffer,” Isthil said. “In my service you will labor ceaselessly to preserve the balance so that this time, existence shall not fail. Do you accept this burden, Mara?”

Yes, it would have been funny if I'd said,
Hell no.
Part of me wanted to. But a deeper part of me understood that I had done a terrible wrong, a wrong that would only be
righted by my willing service.

“I do,” I said.

“Serve me well,” the goddess said. “And in time, you will be free in body and in soul.”

Was I crying or was I laughing? Sadness and joy were each too real and too powerful for me to hope to control myself. I was destroyed. I was reborn. I saw a long and awful path of pain and utter loneliness ahead. But I knew now that at the end, I would live in the freedom of the forgiven.

I dashed away tears, and when I looked again the goddess was gone, but Daniel was with us.

“You must say your farewells,” he said gently.

Messenger came to me and opened his arms. I wanted so very much to go to him, to be wrapped in his embrace for the first and last time. But I said, “I am not to be touched.”

Messenger shook his head. “I know the images that will fill my mind. I know the pain it will cause, but the greater pain would be in not saying farewell.”

He took me in his arms, and I felt him stiffen as each of the horrors we had witnessed together once more flooded his mind. But he did not pull away, and I
held him for a while. How often had I dreamed of that moment? But now it was different than the emotions I had imagined. I was not holding the Messenger of Fear. I was not holding the boy I had longed for. I was saying good-bye to a friend.

We separated at last.

“Go to her,” I said, making no attempt to conceal my tears.

“As you wish, Messenger,” he said.

“But hey . . .”

“Yes?” he asked.

“I suppose you won't be able to see me. I'll be . . .” I sighed. “And you'll be . . . But I wonder if you'd mind if from time to time, when it's all too much, you know, I wonder if you'd mind if I sometimes looked in on you.”

“I will see you here,” he said, and touched his heart.

Then, he was gone.

I was alone with Daniel.

And I realized that I was dressed differently. I wore a dark coat that fell to my knees. There were boots on my feet. Rings on my fingers. And to any mortal eye I allowed to see me, I would appear as a girl of uncommon beauty.

I used the sleeve of my new coat to dry my eyes. I took my time because if there's one thing Daniel did not lack, it was time.

I looked up at last. “I have things to do, don't I?”

“You do indeed,” Daniel said.

“I still don't know his name.”

Daniel nodded toward the golden tablet where the letters were cooling but still glowed.

“Michel?” I read. I don't know what I expected; it was a good French name. And I could see him as a “Michel.” Now. But in the end it was just a name, and not very important.

Just as my name was no longer important.

For I was no longer Mara.

And I was no longer an apprentice.

I would bring terror to the wicked, and to teach me humility, I would be marked with the memories of that terror. I would be alone for a terribly long time. I would feel pain and sorrow. But I would feel joy as well. I would serve Isthil and the balance She maintains.

I would fight to preserve existence itself.

For I am the Messenger of Fear.

It may surprise some readers to learn that I don't make books all by myself. I just write the words. But I don't design either the exterior or the interior of the book, because the results would be sad looking. I don't arrange for the book to get to bookstores or libraries—who would I even call to arrange that? I don't know. I don't really even tell people about the book unless it's on Twitter, so there are professionals who take care of that for me, too. And, the truth is, although I write every word, I do it with the benefit of insight and experience from great editors, and a great publisher. So, I
want to thank at least some of the people who make all that stuff happen: Barb Fitzsimmons, Joel Tippie and Amy Ryan from design; Kathryn Silsand from managing editorial; Lauren Flower and Alana Whitman from marketing; Rosanne Romanello from publicity; Kelsey Horton from editorial; and of course, the boss and my pal, Katherine Tegen.