The Book Man, Chapters 54-55 (Revised)

54 NEVA

He was the most beautiful person Christian had ever seen. He was perhaps nine or ten feet tall, with skin as white as new-fallen snow, so white he shone in the darkness, and naked except for a kilt of palm leaves strung about his hips. Indigo hair fell to his shoulders and showed beneath his arms; his eyes were indigo too, a paler shade than his hair. The thin indigo eyebrows stood out startlingly on his white face. But there was something, perhaps in the slightly arrogant tilt of his nose or the kingly thrust of one leg out in front of him, that rendered him not as enchanting (to the careful observer) on the second glance as on the first. Within another minute of staring at him Christian felt no longer as taken with him as he had, though Neva was still so glorious that he did not feel equal to meeting the angel’s eyes.

The hummingbird darted forward again and hovered close to Neva’s ear as though whispering something into it. Neva nodded, never taking his eyes off Christian, and the bird settled on the arm of his throne. The angel’s expression was unreadable.

“You may sit, if you like,” he said at last. His voice was deeper than Christian had expected from his beautiful face. “I’m afraid there are few chairs in my house, but I assure you the grass is quite as comfortable.”

So Christian, feeling rather foolish, sat cross-legged on the grass. Narodnaya drifted lower but remained in the air behind him, gazing at the lean white figure on the throne. A dove flapped out of the trees with a small sack in its beak and dropped the sack into Christian’s lap. He opened it to discover a variety of fruits: figs, apples so richly red they were almost purple, mangos, papayas, and others he didn’t recognize.

“Eat,” Neva said.

Christian fell upon the food with gusto, feeling incredibly rude for scarfing it down this way but unable to stop himself. He was terribly hungry.

“Raya tells me you are a human,” Neva said, as if this was a normal way to begin a conversation. The thin nostrils flared then contracted. “He seems sure of himself, and yet you do not smell quite like a human.”

Christian swallowed a mouthful of food and asked. “Why does everyone keep saying that?” Narodnaya chuckled silently behind him, but Neva did not answer. “I am a human, at any rate. And I’m here on behalf of, er, other humans and also your—your fairies.”

Neva raised an indigo eyebrow. “Hardly my fairies. I do not claim them.”

“You banished them,” Christian said.

“True. But it was only because they allowed Goblin to escape.”

“If you saw fit to punish them, why shouldn’t you claim them?”

Narodnaya’s voice rang in Christian’s head. Do not incense him. He is powerful.

That only made Christian angry. He was not sure why he should be angry, except that it seemed unfair to him that Aurelia and her sisters had been banished from their home by someone who refused to claim them and in fact seemed disdainful at the thought of them.

“I’m sorry,” he said in as polite a tone as he could manage, “but if you are so very powerful, why didn’t you think it your responsibility to keep Goblin from escaping?”

He quailed as an angry light flashed through Neva’s indigo eyes, but in a moment the light had gone and Neva leaned back in his throne, looking unconcerned.

“It was not my responsibility,” he said. “The garden is my responsibility, the birds and beasts and peoples of this realm are my responsibility. I give them aid as I see fit, but Goblin was left to the fairies. They were meant to watch him, and they allowed him to escape. The fault is theirs.”

“But—” Christian said, but Neva’s eyes flashed again and he half-rose from his throne.

“Do not speak of things you know nothing about,” he hissed. “They allowed evil into your world, and so they were banished. But I am merciful. When my brother is vanquished they may return.”

His anger vanished and he said back in his chair languidly. Christian stared at him.

“Your—your brother?” he said. He heard Narodnaya’s voice in his head, warning him not to anger the angel further, but he ignored her. “Goblin is your brother?”

Neva raised his eyebrows. “Of course he is. I see you know even less of this than I thought.”

Christian swallowed and said (with more bravado than he felt), “Tell me, then.”

So Neva told him the story of Goblin.

55 NEVA’S TALE

Neva and Goblin were not only brothers: they were twins, born to the High Queen of their world. But while Neva was born with all the beauty and grace any being could have, Goblin was an ugly creature. That was why he was called Goblin.

“Your mother named him Goblin?” Christian asked, horrified at the thought.

“Of course not,” Neva snapped. “But everyone called him Goblin from the time we were small.”

Both brothers were raised as befitted princes, learning the histories of their world and its peoples, the proper way to enter a room filled with kings and great lords and ladies, how to be stewards of the land, the plants, the beasts. Neva was an early favorite with the people, both because of his unearthly beauty and because of his charm (charm? Christian thought, but he said nothing), his talent for commanding a room and making guests feel at ease.

Goblin’s talents, however, were quieter, mostly in the ways of growing things. He spent hours alone in the palace gardens from the beginning. As tales spread through the world about his ugliness, he spent more and more time in the gardens, in the forest and lake at the foot of the mountains, and less and less time attending balls and festivals in the palace.

“It grieved my mother, I know,” Neva said. “She would send me out looking for him, though I admit it was difficult to convince him to return even when I could find him. More often than not I returned home empty-handed.”

Still the tales spread. On the rare occasion Goblin did appear at a ball or venture out to a market on some errand for his mother, he found himself the center of much unwanted attention. The people, birds, and beasts of the world looked upon his ugliness and whispered amongst themselves at balls or fled down the streets before him. He grew angry and began to lash out by way of pranks played in the palace and the villages east of the mountains.

“Pranks, he called them,” Neva said bitterly. “One such prank resulted in an explosion that caused the death of my mother and a young maid who worked in the palace.”

In punishment for his crimes, Neva imprisoned Goblin in a tree in the heart of the Sunforest, there to remain for eternity. The fairies who dwelt in the Sunforest were given the task of guarding him.

Infuriated at his imprisonment, Goblin gathered to him other creatures of hideous appearance and ill nature: hellhounds, banshees, giant spiders, carrion fowl, hags and furies. These creatures did what he could not in his confinement, flourished under his instruction, and spread throughout the world, wreaking havoc in his name.

In time, other worlds were discovered, younger worlds with different creatures. One such world was Earth.

“You humans are such fragile creatures,” Neva said. “I knew Goblin would cause unspeakable damage to your world if he was allowed to escape, so I ordered the fairies to strengthen the spells on his prison and double their guard.”

“Why should you care?” Christian asked. He felt he was pushing his luck, but he pressed on. “If he escaped to Earth he wouldn’t be here to cause trouble anymore.”

A frown crossed the angel’s face. “I cared because my brother was supposed to have been imprisoned for the rest of time.”

“An eternity of imprisonment seems a bit harsh,” Christian said.

Neva glowered at him. “He killed our mother. Eternal imprisonment was his just punishment.”

“If you say so,” Christian said, and Neva went on.

For almost a century after Earth was discovered, Goblin lay quiet in his cell, and his allies diminished and caused less trouble. The fairies relaxed, thinking he had come to terms with his punishment or their newly strengthened spells would be enough to contain him.

“No doubt that was his plan,” Neva said, “for with the lowering of the fairies’ guard, Goblin was able to break free one night.”

Half the Sunforest was destroyed in his escape, and with it many of the fairies and other creatures who dwelt there. Goblin escaped through the portal to Earth, taking many of his allies with him, and the remaining fairies were banished as punishment for failing in their task, not to return until he was slain or brought back to this world for his brother to deal with him.

“They did neither,” Neva said, “and so they are still banished.”

Morrow and his people, however, had at least trapped Goblin so it would be a long time before he could do more damage. For that, Neva rewarded them.

“They did as much as I could expect mere humans to do,” he said.