Angel stared at the child–like creature, trying to equate the words with the speaker, to imagine what it must mean for it to exist in a world of demonkind and humans.
"I have only seen the Lady in my dreams," Angel said suddenly.
But then it was said that no one did anymore. Not since the balance of good and evil was tilted in favor of the Void. She did not come to the Knights of the Word either in their dreams or in waking once they had pledged themselves. She was an invisible presence, a legend that no longer had substance, but that all of them who were Knights of the Word still believed in.
Still needed to believe in, she added.
"The Lady sent you to me?" she added, not quite knowing what to make of it. "What does she want me to do?"
Ailie's voice was soft and singsong. "She says you have served her well, but you have saved all the children you can. She wants you to leave them here and go on alone. She wants you to be her Knight–errant and to go in search of a lost talisman. She believes you are the one who can find it. The people who need its magic are in danger of perishing. They are the ones to whom you must go."
The tatterdemalion saw the confusion mirrored on Angel's face and came forward wordlessly, took her hands in her own, and held them. Ailie's fingers were like the wings of little birds, so soft and light they seemed weightless.
"Long ago, in the time of John Ross, there was a gypsy morph that took the form of a child and was born to Nest Freemark." Ailie's voice was soft and lilting. "The demons tried to find it and kill it, but they failed. They have not forgotten its existence because they know that the salvation of the human race depends on what it has been given to do. No one has seen the morph in years, not since before the death of Nest Freemark. No one knows where it is or what it looks like. It has gone into hiding, waiting for its time. That time is upon us, and the gypsy morph will reveal itself shortly. Another Knight of the Word goes to find it now, sent by O'olish Amaneh."
Two Bears, Angel thought, remembering. It was Two Bears who had come to her in the beginning to make her a Knight of the Word.
It was Two Bears who acted as emissary to the Lady, the bearer of the black staff, the giver of the Word's power as its champion. How long ago it seemed now.
"Am I to help this Knight of the Word?" she asked.
The tatterdemalion shook her head, her hair rippling like a length of diaphanous blue silk. "He goes another way from you; his is a different quest.
If he lives, you will see him when you are finished."
If he lives. Sure. And if I live.
"So this talisman I'm being sent to find is not the gypsy morph?" she pressed. She knew the story of the gypsy morph and Nest Freemark. Two Bears had told it to her. She wasn't sure she believed it, Ailie's tale notwithstanding.
"Then what sort of talisman is it?"
"It is an Elfstone."
Now Angel was really lost. "An Elfstone?" she asked. "As in Elves?"
"Elves created it, long ago in the world of Faerie."
Angel scowled, angry now. "Elves created it? You're saying there are Elves out there? What does that mean? Look, I don't know what any of this is about. I don't know anything about Elves and their Stones. I'm a barrio girl, a street girl, never even been this far north before in my life, and this Elf stuff is just words that don't mean anything. You want to tell me what you're talking about?"
The tiny hands tightened on her own, surprisingly strong. "There are Elves in the world, Angel Perez. There have always been Elves in the world, even before there were humans. They were of the old people, in the time of Faerie, in the world as the Word conceived it before humans came into it. But the Faerie world faded, until only the Elves remained of the old people, and the Elves went into hiding. They have been in hiding ever since."
Ailie pressed close. "But now they must come back into the world if they are to save themselves. They are threatened as humans are threatened, but their salvation lies in the recovery of an Elfstone called a Loden. The Loden is lost to them and must be found. It will give them a way to leave their hiding place and travel to where they will be safe. But the search for the Loden will be difficult and dangerous, and they lack the use of the magic that once would have protected them. They need a Knight of the Word to keep them safe, Angel."
Angel was still coming to terms with the idea that there were Elves, beings she had always believed to be imaginary, creatures of storybooks and legends. What else was there in the world that she didn't know about–what else that she wrongly assumed didn't exist? Her world had always been one of concrete and steel, the ruins of cities and skyscrapers.
She looked off into the trees, then back at Ailie. Well, she thought, if you'd accepted that tatterdemalions were real, how big of a jump was it to believe in Elves?
"So? The Lady has asked that I do all this? She thinks I'm the right one to undertake this search? There is no one else better suited?"
Ailie smiled sadly. "There is no one else at all."
Angel drew in a quick breath and exhaled sharply. "All of the Knights of the Word are gone?"
The tatterdemalion released her hands, folded her child's arms across her chest, and hugged herself. "Will you go?"
Angel took a long moment to answer. She felt the world sliding away from her–the world of her childhood, the only world she had ever known–and it left her feeling bereft and hollowed–out. Everything she knew of life aside from what she did–the rescue of children, the defense of the compounds–had been gone a long time. Now even the little she had been left was about to be taken away, too. It was difficult to accept, and she didn't know if she could.
"What of these people I lead?" she asked. "These children and their protectors? They depend on me."
"You may see them again in another place and time." Ailie's smile was a flicker of brightness. "But they travel too slowly for you, and their road leads another way. You must tell them to travel north to the Columbia River in the Cascade Mountains. Someone will find them there when it is time."
Angel did not miss the evasiveness in Ailie's response. You may see them again. Someone will find them. But not necessarily her because maybe she wouldn't be alive to do so. Whispers of terrible danger echoed in Ailie's words — unvoiced promises of confrontations and struggles that would end in someone's death. She would have believed it in any event because she was a Knight of the Word and it was the nature of her life. But the tatterdemalion's responses left no doubt.
She sighed and nodded. "De acuerdo. How will I find these Elves? Where do I go?"
"I will take you," Ailie answered.
"You will go with me?"
"I will be your guide and your conscience."
Angel blinked. "My conscience?"
The tatterdemalion took a long moment before responding. "It may be that you will misplace your own. It may be that you will need a fresh one. It may be that what you encounter on a journey such as this will require it."
Angel didn't like the sound of this. The tatterdemalion was making a point of telling her that her conscience might become an issue for her. She would not do that if the Lady had not told her to do so. Ailie was acting under orders to prepare Angel for what lay ahead, so that she could not say later that she had not been warned. The implications were not encouraging: it suggested strongly that in the face of future events she might consider turning back.
She shook her head. "What training have you had in the conscience department? Why should I listen to you?"
"Sometimes you cannot hear your own voice clearly and need another to enable it to be understood," the other responded. "I am to be that second voice, there when you need it. But I am not to make your decisions for you. You must do that for yourself."
Angel nodded slowly, understanding the wisdom of this answer. She was being sent out alone; perhaps she would be alone for much of the time. It was not a good thing to have no one to talk to. Given what she was being asked to do, it made sense that the Lady would send someone with her of whom she could ask questions and seek advice. A tatterdemalion, a creature of Faerie, was not the worst choice.