The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [170]
Julia saw it too.
“Do not worry,” she said. “It’s going to be all right.”
Quentin had said that to her on his parents’ lawn in Chesterton. He wondered if she remembered too. It certainly sounded better coming from her now.
Julia thumped the end of her staff on the floor, and then Quentin had to look away. The light was that bright. He couldn’t see, but he heard the massed shades of the underworld of Fillory gasp in unison. The light was different—it wasn’t the thin fluorescent gruel that passed for light down here, it was real rich white-gold sunlight, with all its wavelengths intact. It was like a gap had opened in the clouds.
A voice spoke.
“Enough,” it said. Or she said: it was a woman’s voice. It was a thrilling thing that harmonized with itself.
When Quentin could look again, he saw a woman standing in front of Julia, where her staff had struck the floor. She was a vision of power. Her face was lovely, warm and humorous and proud and fierce all at once. It was the face of a goddess. And there was something else there too—half Her face was in shadow. There was gravity there, and an understanding of grief. Everything will be all right, She seemed to say, and whatever is not, we will mourn.
In one hand She held a gnarled staff like Julia’s. In the other She carried, oddly, a bird’s nest with three blue eggs in it.
“Enough,” She said again.
The shades did what She said and kept still. Julia knelt in front of the goddess, her face buried in her hands.
“My daughter,” the goddess said. “You are safe now. It is over.”
Julia nodded and looked up at Her. Her face was streaming with tears.
“You’re Her,” she said. “Our Lady.”
“I have come to take you home.”
The goddess motioned to Quentin. She wasn’t glowing exactly, but it was hard to look at Her, the same way it’s hard to look at the sun—She was that intense. Only now did Quentin really register the scale of Her. She must have been ten feet tall.
The dead watched them mutely. No more Ping-Pong. For a moment the entire underworld was silent.
Julia rose to her feet, drying her tears.
“What happened to you?” Quentin said. “You’ve changed.”
“It is over,” Julia said. “I am a daughter of the goddess now. A dryad.” I am partially divine,” she added, almost shyly.
He looked at her. She looked magnificent. She was going to be all right.
“It suits you,” he said.
“Thank you. We must go now.”
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
The goddess gathered them both in with one tremendous arm. She held them, and together they all began to rise into the air. Someone cried out, and Quentin felt Benedict’s hand grab his ankle and hang on.
“Don’t leave me here! Please!”
It was like the last chopper out of Saigon. Quentin reached down to grab Benedict’s wrist and for a moment he had it.
“I’ve got you!” he yelled.
He didn’t know what he was doing, but he knew he was going to hold on to Benedict with all the strength he had. They were ten feet up, twenty. They could do this. They were going to steal one soul back. They were going to reverse entropy. Death would win the war, but it wasn’t going to do it with a perfect record.
“Hang on!”
But Benedict couldn’t hang on. His hand slipped from Quentin’s and he fell back down among the shades without a word.
Then they were flying up past the fluorescent lights, and then up through where the ceiling would have been. There was nothing more he could do. Without Benedict to hang onto, Quentin gripped the key so hard it bit into his palm. He had lost Benedict, but he wasn’t going to lose that. They rose up into the darkness, through fire, through earth, through water, and then out into the light again.
CHAPTER 25
Before they did it they took a vacation. It would take a week to order some of the necessary materials: mistletoe, more mirrors,