Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. I bow in the direction of California, where Joss lives. Mutant Evils rules! Selat.

Psychomachia

Part Three

The defeated dragon was pretty in Buffy's eyes, its tail delicate as a gold-chain bracelet looped around her wrist, and its wings cobweb-fine, a moth's scales powdering them, pale straw-gold. While Angel and his knights held a council of war, she wandered away, cupping it in her hand. Its wings wavered gently as she moved, and it whistled to a teakettle note, tiny sounds, whilst washing its whiskered face in minute cat's-paws.

The map upon its wings was incomprehensible to her.

She joggled it, cautiously, and it tightened its tail round her wrist and yawned.

"Dragon? Got any more to say for yourself?"

But the dragon only tucked its head under one wing, and went to sleep.

All the men had gathered in the door-hall, standing guard around the immense doors. But the doorkeeper had vanished--just like Buffy's nuns, she thought morosely. The nuns still hadn't put in a reappearance. Men, men everywhere, and not a woman to be seen. But why so many men, anyway? And why had she been able to defeat the dragon, something Angel had called impossible? He had meant what he said; afterward, she had seen dismay in the way he turned from her. She had asked him about the map on the dragon's wings, but he had not answered. None of his followers would give her so much as the time of day. She missed her handful of nuns; not one of them had obeyed her, but they had been her own.

"They are in your heart, daughter. In your heart, and your mind's eye also."

"What?" said Buffy.

A compassionate hand had just been laid on her shoulder from behind. Her little dragon put up its head and fizzed like a kitten; the woman only smiled, her weary face lighting up in crow's-feet round the eyes. She carried a twig besom, which she had been employing to sweep up the dead rushes on the floor, and she had been strewing fresh greens from a large willow basket, sweet-smelling cloves and straw-daisies among them, and rose-petals too, dry and velvet-black. At first glance, Buffy thought she was very old. Then she realized that her stooped back was no sign of age. Instead, she was heavy with child, bent over with this dear burden, till she rested one hand on her swollen stomach, straightened with a smile and a groan mingled. She wiped her hair out of her face, tucking the loose ends under her wimple. "It will be better by and by," she remarked, to Buffy's worried look. "You're thinking about Sir Liam and his knights. Sir did I call him? Yes, for a very long time he has hankered after the title of knight, and yet no authority has ever granted him any such accolade. And you could defeat his dragon because you have never suffered its prick of anomie: only those who do not know anomie can afford to laugh at it, young quean." Then she waddled onward, wielding her broom.

Buffy leaped after her. "Wait! Shouldn't I help you with that?"

"Why, yes, young Mede--it would be kind."

Buffy took the besom (first bestowing the sleepy dragon in her voluminous sleeve) and began to ply it, vigorously sweeping up rushes. Dust filled her nose and made her sneeze, and she made a face. The other woman laughed. She walked alongside Buffy as she swept, taking her arm and squeezing it companionably. "Sweep my floor," she said, "and as long as you keep the broom busy, I'll walk beside you and entertain you with riddles."

"Are you my mother?" Buffy asked in a small voice.

"No, but I have many children. I think you have already met my husband: he is the doorkeeper of this house. Time is his name--come, why that look of surprise, haven't you ever heard of Farmer Time? A deft gentleman with the scythe is he, and must always be at his work. Reaping and sowing, doing and going, he waits for no man."

"Reaping and sowing," said Buffy doubtfully, "isn't that the wrong way around?"

"Is it? Not in this world of men, I say: here, always the reaping leads to the sowing, and those who say otherwise, may go milk fish. And I should know. My name is Memory. This child, when he is born, will be Truth," and again she patted her great mound of a belly. "But his day in Liam's world has not yet dawned."

"Why do you keep calling him Liam?"

"Because that's his name. William, poor fool. For though he is always over-mindful of me, he has eschewed my husband, Time--a pity, for Time alone can heal him, and I do him no good. But a man must dig his own grave in this world, aye, and climb in all alone--and out by himself too, sometimes. I can read the next question on your lips, child. You've forgotten something, and want to ask what?"

"I--who am I, and why do I know him? Angel. Because I feel . . ." She trailed off.

"I can tell you this much," said Memory. "All your life you've built walls, yes, high stone walls with locked doors in them. Walls and shut windows and heavy locks, a house about yourself. And you've spent too much time thinking on me, even as your poor Liam. And now look at the two of you. Here is this gloomy mansion of yours, and there, outside, is that bleak graveyard of his, and never the twain shall meet, by Saint Trunnion and Saint Pintle I swear it."

"Do you know everything?"

"Everything in the world that's remembered, everything."

Buffy sidled closer to Memory. In a shy voice, she asked, "Then can you . . . ?" She finished in a rush: "Tell me where to find love?"

But Memory pinched her, so vindictively that Buffy yipped. "For shame. Better you went searching for my twin brother Thought--but no, you young maids are always running after Love." Buffy's face fell. "Oh, very well," Memory said, relenting. "You've been unlucky in love."

More dust puffed up before the broom, stinging Buffy's eyes. "I do remember a bit. Like, I was in love, really true love, for a long long time, but-- I couldn't be with him, I couldn't. And I don't remember why! I don't know what happened to keep us apart!"

"Maybe it was no true love."

"No, I-- There was another man. Recently. I thought it was love too, with me and him, but now I think was all just me being wrong." Buffy concentrated, then burst out, "Riley! Riley Finn, I remember his name at least. This other man, the one I really truly love--his love was the heart of my life for so long, years maybe, forever. We were never together, though." In a very small voice: "But his name, I don't even know it."

Her twig broom rattled dryly, and she glanced down and saw that she was sweeping up bones and cobwebs along with the rushes.

Memory sighed deeply. "You live too much in my realm, child, you have always lived too much with me. Till you've shut your eyes to Memory's mirror, fearing yourself no more than a reflection of your past."

Yes, the rushes were full of bones, and dusty webbing, and dead, curled skeletal spiders. Mesmerized, she struck at them with her broom. She would have stepped back, but Memory's grip held her in place.

"Buffy Slayer, kynde mede, of all the demons you ever slew, two only you struck through the heart. A lonely road lies behind you. Two men have loved you. And now you ask me how to find Love? Well, as it happens, I do know something about that gentleman. Many a searcher has come to him through my husband's offices. Indeed he is my third cousin by marriage, but he's flighty, you must work hard to win even a moment with him. Yet I know exactly where he dwells, and if you would go there, you must first embrace me, Mother Memory, again."

Spiders and roaches and glove-soft mice, scuttling and leaping before her broom. And old bones, gnawed bones, dry white shards of bone, tumbling over Buffy's pointed and embroidered shoes. Leaves, and filth and-- Her mouth opened in a soundless cry of woe. They broke over her skirts like a tide, mounting halfway to her knees in the blink of an eye. There were no more rushes, no sweet, strewn herbs. Only garbage, which she fiercely swept away.

"Find the garden in the blighted wood."

Buffy swept and swept in a frenzy, beating the broom against the floor.

"It is the garden of desire. Go beyond the fork in the path, past the hidden spring. Once you're there, you have to find the seat of love. Where should you seek it? Buffy, listen: it lies between hands folded in prayer, between the flesh at work and the soul at play. Between breasts and bone, blood, mind and eyes, mouth, ears, belly, thighs--" with each word, she tweaked and pinched Buffy in a different place, till Buffy flinched in pain and whacked the broom on the flagstones, "--find exactly where love dwells, d'you hear? Once you have done that, you must swallow the pill I'll give you." A sly smile turned up the corners of Memory's lips. "You will find it burns your mouth, but persevere. And you will remember what is dearest to you."

Memory's voice turned fierce.

"One last thing--when you enter the garden, never close your eyes. Once close your eyes, you may never find Love."

Buffy could not hear over the rapid beating of the broom, flailing in harsh explosions, a thudding pulse-beat.

"Go in with eyes wide open, and keep them open!" Memory shouted, shaking her. "Never a blink, do you hear?"

The broomstick snapped in two.

Someone was shaking her arm, saying, "Buffy?" Buffy wiped tears out of her eyes, looked about in a daze; it was Angel's mailed hand on her arm, Angel lifting her solicitously to her feet. And though she stammered a few lame words of explanation and then broke away to search the hall with her gaze--

Had it all been a dream? There was no other woman present, no broom to be seen either, no broken bones underfoot, no vermin, no horror of scuttling filth. Only the dry rushes rustling like wind-whispers, as she scuffed them with her heel, kicked them angrily away.

But then she glanced down. The little dragon clung tenaciously to her sleeve, light as a dried thistle-leaf; its back was stooped, and with its foreclaws, it was reeling in a golden chain that had tangled through Buffy's fingers. She raised her hand, blinking sleepily. A slowly revolving amulet hung from the chain. Clockwise it revolved, widdershins, clockwise again . . . but it was not her own.

Hers was made of silver, but this was pure gold. Engraved on it in fine curling script were the words Hic Jacet Amor.

She looked at this talisman many times over the next few days.

Days that were not days, for the sun never rose, and though the stars revolved in the sky, still the full moon hung frozen evermore, a lamp at the zenith of midnight. Buffy saw it out of the windows of the convent, leaning perilously far out over the stone sills, craning to gaze straight up. At that unearthly glowing amulet of a moon. But its message was too enigmatic for her to read, even if not in Latin.

She watched the moon for hours sometimes, till she napped and jarred awake, oddly frightened; at these times her first thought was always to look up swiftly, see if the moon had moved. Only after the quick snap of her gaze upward, would she jerk back from the window, think of falling. And this happened almost every . . . night. She measured the days by guessing; whenever she fell asleep from exhaustion, that meant one day had passed. Buffy began keeping a calendar, making marks on the doorframe of the convent kitchen. She scavenged in the kitchen for crusty loaves of bread, which she found hanging in nets from the beams overhead: big round loaves of coarse bread. She found turnips in barrels, wormy things, and kegs full of onions, soft squishy brown spots on their rinds; she found withered apples still holding a memory of sweetness in their dried flesh. And there were other fruits she could not recognize. A dim recollection of days spent in England brought up names: damsons, currants, quinces.

Recollections, memories. These were fog, in which she groped, lost.

What did the name "England" mean; what did the name "Giles" mean; what did the name of William mean to her?

But she found a keg of cherries preserved in their own syrup, and feasted on them for a long while, one bowl of luscious sweetness at a time.

She watched the moon, hanging out of windows, holding out a polished tin platter at the full stretch of her arms to see its reflection round odd angles, and once she lay on her back in the huge kitchen hearth, head in the oven, to look up the chimney at the night. But the moon never spoke to her, never told her where was the sun. She searched the convent, descended into the cellars with a candle, discovered spiders, musty old ale-vats, coal-scuttles; no secret tunnels.

"Never set foot out of the door," Angel forbade her. "Far too dangerous for any of us." Then he made her swear a solemn vow. Buffy backed away from him, one hand behind her back, fingers crossed as she made her promise. Each time she saw him, her doubts grew stronger. He never doffed his armor, never so much as removed the mask of his helm, never. Since their first meeting, he had even kept his vambraces on and she did not see even the tips of his fingers. She entertained wild fantasies of pinning him in a corner, thrusting her hand into any openings in his plate mail, sliding a finger into the slit of his helmet, groping at him--that she might come at the flesh of the man. She dreamed of it . . . and woke with her heart drumming, her face oddly hot, squeezing her thighs damply together. And her doubts grew.

She never met Angel or any of his Black Knights in the kitchen. She never saw any of the men there. She never saw a sign that anyone but herself came raiding for food.

She searched high and low for the magic library--but never found it. Yet still she thought on the books of poems there, how the words worked on the world like bubbles fizzing in strong wine. There had been a power to them, a riddle she couldn't solve--no matter how long she pondered. When she puzzled on it too hard, it made her sneeze.

"Bless you," said Angel, on the sixteenth "day" of Buffy's calendar, when he came round a corner of the great hall and found her sitting in an embrasure, sneezing her head off. "Are you sick?"

"No, no," said Buffy hastily, wiping her nose in humiliation. "Hey, listen." To distract him, she dug in her girdle (she had found this was a good place to carry her valuables) and held out the gold amulet with the writing. "Can you tell me what this says?"

He bent over it. "Hic Jacet Amor . . . Where did you get this, Buffy?"

"Oh, I just found it, why?"

"It means, uh, Buried Love." But his voice sounded evasive. "Strange thing is I've got one of these too. But it says something different from yours--I wonder why that is?"

She remembered how he had tried to hold up something against the dragon Anomie (who slept, even now, curled like a mouse in her sleeve). But she didn't tell him that the gold amulet wasn't hers, and when he reached for it, his mailed fingers brushed her bare palm and a jab of cold struck through her flesh. She shrank back. "What's written on yours?"

"Never mind," said Angel hastily.

He wouldn't tell her about the map on the dragon's wings either, she remembered. They were both backing away. Buffy looked up at the towering bulk of Angel, all gleaming armor, black as night; there was not an inch of him that was not plated in steel. She remembered her fantasies but against the reality of that armor, they all seemed feeble. But she wasn't afraid of him, she told herself. "Angel? William." She tried out the name for size, curious because it didn't fit. "Uh, Liam. Look, don't you ever take that off? I don't even know if you've got skin under there . . ."

But, "You're looking at it," said Angel, in a bleak and hollow tone.

That was his . . . ? But it made sense to her, in a funny way. If Angel's armor was like his skin, how would she like to pull off her own skin and go bleeding before the world? She wouldn't. The thought brought her closer again, till she reached out boldly and prodded him in the breastplate, drawing a fingertip down it--it left a long streak on the polish. "So . . . are you ticklish in there? Or if I poke you? What would it take to get a rise out of you? I'm just asking." And she stepped right up to him, and leaned close. On his breastplate, where she had touched him, the designs were breathtakingly complex. They were inlaid with black niello amalgam in the blue-gleaming steel; they were engraved, curling stems and leaves which made a vine which, all taken in all, was a climbing griffon, upright upon Angel's chest. Dragons and capering demons surrounded it, in a panoply of damnation, a Garden of Hell. And the design revealed more and more detail the closer she got. Dismembered skeletons littered the background. The demons were busy torturing human victims--men and women whose minute faces were distorted into screams, and even the tiniest skulls under their feet bled tears of blood from their eye-sockets! Buffy couldn't tear her gaze away. There was, in the middle of the impossibly complicated design, a conjunction of tormented, maimed figures twisted into a single symbol, a Celtic knot of pain. It was a cross, reversed. Upside-down.

It was by now just an inch from her nose. She paid no attention to the fact that she was all but in Angel's lap. She breathed across his armor, enjoying the way her breath clouded the polish, like fog or mist. At last its lure was irresistible, and she leaned that last inch, and pressed her lips against the cross in the steel.

It hurt, burning her with a jab of icy chill, but the pain was nothing next to the joy that leaped in her heart. She clutched her hands against her own breast, melting in delight. When the kiss ended and she straightened, stepping back, and raised her eyes to Angel's, she felt the skin of her lips rip and tear. "Buffy," said Angel, sounding shaken. She put her fingers to her mouth, brought them away bloody; the kiss had cut her, marking her with the inverted cross.

Within moments the wound healed, gone as if it had never been. Buffy shook her head, smiling up at him. "It's nothing. See? No harm, no foul."

"You're still--bloody. I--" His hand jerked out toward her, fell. Then he said, "Buffy, come with me. We must go out, hunt the Black Knight."

"I thought you were the Black Knight?"

But Angel didn't answer.

At the entrance doors, his fellow knights in armor waited: the one with the broadsword, the one with the battle-axe, the one with the chainsaw. There were other men with them, serfs in greasy leather jerkins or catskin waistcoats, their woollen hoods pulled low over their faces. They hefted billhooks, scythes, tined rakes, pitchforks. Pairs of snarling dogs surged around their knees, coupled with stout leashes. Angel strode into their midst, kicked away a dog that tried to bite him. "Unbar the doors!" he shouted, and the men raised a cheer. The rafters rang. "The enemy threatens!"

They all streamed through the doors, on foot, and went down the road through the dead and barren land, the land of night. Angel ushered Buffy at his side, his shield-arm extended protectively over her. She half-ran next to him, the air of the blighted land biting her throat. They did not touch.

Everything had changed, yet again. Barely an arrow-shot from the mansion's withered gardens, a forest long-leafless had walked up and settled, sinking its gnarled claws of roots deep into the flesh of the world: a wood of trees as stooped as vultures. Their limbs were death-pale, glistening; their wood gleamed bright as beaks of birds. They crowded close upon the track. It seemed to Buffy that the moonlight would fall easily through them, onto the bare stones and earth. But it did not. Little light penetrated. She stepped hesitantly under the dark eaves of the wood, glancing up, and saw shadows whispering among twigs and branches. There were no leaves, but the shadows of leaves still flocked there; there were no leaves, but their voices still persisted, clinging like rustling ghosts on every side. She blinked, and saw them engraved like grave-stones with inscriptions, up and down their ragged trunks: on the nearest were written the mysterious words Hic Jacet Angelus: Quid Eran Nescitis: Quid Sim, Nescitis: Ubi Abii, Nescitis: Valete. Buffy blinked again and the words were English, and they read Here lies Angelus: What I was you know not; What I am you know not; Whither I am gone you know not; Farewell. But she was still mystified.

"Angel? Where are you . . . Angel?"

He had gone ahead while she still hesitated, and all she could see now were the trees, thick as the grave-stones they resembled, and the backs of Angel's huntsmen hurrying after him. Their weapons jabbed at the trees, which they seemed to hold in fear. "Listen, listen," said one, brushing past her, "the song in the boughs, O!" Buffy heard then how there were words too in the sough of the leaves, how with many a nonsense phrase, "Hey go wear the sun on a necklace, for Kynde is abroad on the earth," and "Hark, merry pizzles shall sing Cuckoo," and "Every man shall have his mede," they beckoned her onward.

She was drawn to the voice, though the men seemed so frightened. Still, she had now entirely lost sight of Angel. Buffy caught up her (stupid, awkward) skirts and hustled, worried about being knocked right over, trodden underfoot. All the huntsmen were all far taller than she was. She began to leap straight up, trying to see over their shoulders. Leap. Leap. No good. At last she grabbed one of the hunters by his cloak. "Kind sir--" she began.

She had snagged the edge of his cowl; it fell back on his shoulders, revealing his face. But there was no face. There was only a ring of thick curling beard and tangled thatch of hair, and projecting from it, the snout of a pig. Short tusks curled up from its underjaw, and its nostrils were fleshy, large, quivering and pink; nothing else was visible amidst the hair, save little brilliant eyes shining under beetling brows. He was a man, but with the head of a beast.

"Sure and if it isn't the Master's bonny cunny," he said, drawing very near to Buffy and snuffling through his nose. "His little hinny, so young, so very . . . clean. What's she want, then? What's she wanting now?"

Suddenly there were a dozen other hunters crowding around Buffy, all but squeezing her off her feet with their jostling closeness. They smelled rank, like animals, not men.

"What you want, woman? Eh? Eh?"

"I just wanted to ask who's this Black Knight that Angel is looking for," stammered Buffy.

She could see them all clearly now: their nostrils flaring hungrily, the flies crawling on their snouts and at the corners of their eyes. The wet loud snuffles of their laughter made her feel sick. "Beware him, the wodehouse, the wild man of the wood," said one, snorting into her ear, "he is an old Roman, with old Roman customs, and his name is Sir Lascivius Luste. And he'll eat you up." And the others all joined in, chorusing: "Eat you up, eat you up, eat you up!"

She shrank, because she was sure nothing like this had never happened to her before, and it frightened her.

"W-what, is he . . . a monster?"

"Eh!" They all roared with mirth. "Yes, he has three legs, he does, and large is his odd limb the length of a club, yesss, a very rood it is, ah very rude." Buffy felt a stealthy hand laid on her wimple, tugging it back so a lock of her hair sprang free in a long curling wisp. "Only one love-lace will serve to snare his kind," said one of the man-animals slobberingly, "a maid must be staked out in the wildwood, and the unicorn comes and buries his horn in her lap, he does, buries it till he cries O O I die," and his long thick tongue came out and licked Buffy's cheek.

Her little dragon darted its head out of her wimple, and buried needle-fangs in his snout.

He squealed like a hog, falling over backwards; the dragon leaped forth, stooped upon him in a sparrow-hawk's dive. Around her, the others set up such a bellowing and a weeping that Buffy clapped her hands to her ears. "Ah, ye harridan, full of cunning quennings, fit to ravage before the devil! Look what she did to poor Peeping-tom!" But she was staring down at the fallen hunter, for an amulet like hers had jounced out of his disreputable jerkin, and a word gleamed on it: Peipingtomme. "What's that?" Buffy blurted. "Is that your name? Do you all wear your names around your necks?"

They yelled at her. "Yes, as I am Pintle-pull-my-hood!"

"And I, Quabbledecock Gropequint!"

"And I, Wee-willie-be-wicked!"

"And I, Humbert-Humbert!"

They were all demons; she knew their kind. "Get away from me!" Buffy shouted. The dragon lifted from its victim (which seemed paralyzed by its attack and, in fact, appeared half-asleep) and flew to her hand. As soon as it did, Buffy took to her heels.

She ran headlong through the dark wood, abandoning the path.

In an instant, she had left everything far behind her. Her dragon sailed overhead, a firefly light. The voices of the pig-men faded and were gone. Buffy slowed to a walk, felt a sudden worry. She hadn't meant to go off by herself that way, she had only wanted to get back to Angel-- She halted, turned in a circle, and tried to guess which way might lead back to the others. But there was no telling. She was well and truly lost.

It was then that she heard the voice again, drifting through the coffin-trees.

"Go tell the tide to fight the shore,
Stars be divorced from night above;
Tell what in the world the heart is for
Tell where in the heart is the seat of love."

"The seat of love!" She changed her course, began to follow.

"Sell fish to the river, send roses to war
Squeeze diamonds from dewdrops, wash white from the dove
Haul sunshine along in a bucket, before
Beloved, I betray our love."

But who was singing, who was it?

"Pet, you war in every part:
Teeth bite lip to spite your nose,
Mind misgives what's in your heart,
Mouth shall deny all of those;
Feet shall flee from ankles, and
Eye be cross with other eye.
Your left and right fight hand to hand:
Sooner that than our love should die."

It was his light that she spotted first, far ahead of her. A light like a lamp, and then-- "Dragon, is that a man?" When she got a little closer, she saw that it was certainly a man. He was leaning against a tree, smoking. One of his hands was laid, cupped, against his chest over the heart, and it was from there that the light emanated. Buffy couldn't make out his face--only his hair, white as salt in the night. But still, her own heart jolted at the sight.

She stole up on him, afraid to speak. He wiped his free hand over his brow, in a gesture of weariness and abandonment. Then he threw his head back against the tree-trunk, slumping there like a sacrifice, and chanted on, running over the words, as if getting them right in his mind:

"Go, winnow the wind and thresh the sky
Climb a ladder of flying birds
Milk me a tear from the hurricane's eye
All this, ere you deny my words.
Lover against lover shall lie
Cheek betray face with a blush
Shameless thigh divide from thigh
And cock fly crowing out of bush
Ere we are parted, you and I."

Buffy could bear it no longer.

She shouted, and his head turned. The long elegant curve of his cheekbone left her breathless, and his smile--sudden, desperate, brilliant nevertheless--made her want to weep. A curl of smoke jetted out of his nostrils, his eyes gleamed sideways at her. Blue eyes like a unicorn, white hair like a unicorn, but the smoke furling in the air about him, that was dragon-smoke. And that smile was the smile of an awkward boy. Then he turned away abruptly, stepping around the trunk of the tree--

He moved like music.

He moved like dancing.

When she got to the tree, he had vanished.

Buffy ran frantically around and around the tree. Three times round, panting--then she saw him again, walking swiftly away from her, already a long away ahead. It was the light that had betrayed him, the light that burned over his heart. She hurried after him. Her feet thudded on the bare ground of the forest. Soon she was running, and so was he. No matter how fast she went, he was faster. He ran through the dark woods, still smoking--a trail of smoke unfurling behind him--and there was still the glow, like roasting red coals. She could see how he ran, now, bent over with his arms wrapped around himself. And now he was burning, thin tongues of fire bursting from his body. He stumbled, engulfed in flame, and fell forward out of sight.

Then she was standing, fists clenched, in the very spot where she had last seen him, with tears streaming out of her eyes. Where had he gone?

Something creaked like a swinging gate, somewhere to her left, and as she turned to look, there he was, caught opening a tall ironwork gate in the gloomy wood. He stepped through, shutting it behind him--as she cried out, as she plunged in pursuit. Buffy arrived just as the gate clicked to, and she wept in frustration and thudded her fists against it.

It jarred loosely under her blows. She stopped short, and the gate swung partway-open, toward her. Then she laid her hand flat upon it. It swung the rest of the way with perfect ease. So she stepped through . . . into, into--

Behind her, the ironwork gate was swinging shut, upon a cleft in a towering apple-tree. No hand had touched it; it moved of itself. A fine spray of water fell across her face. In fact she was standing in water, her feet sopping wet. It was still midnight, still Angel's world of night--where had that thought come from?--but there was no darkness here, for candles burned everywhere: dozens, hundreds of candles. And through the confusion and haze of light, she caught glimpses of jeweled colors, heard an extraordinary commotion, saw birds dart and fly! She almost retreated back through the gate, but hesitated--shy before the treasures that beckoned. In the end it was too late. The gate shut with a faint, sweet clang. There was no going back.

Buffy stepped out of the current of water. The stream in which she had stood ran out of the gate-cleft in the apple, and a curtain of water fell, veiling the entranceway. She could also see two paths, coming around the tree and converging--walking ahead of her with round cobble-footsteps, leading her on. And now she could see her surroundings, this whole place.

The instant she did, her Anomie left her: became smaller yet, and buzzed away in pursuit of a bluebottle, vanishing into the further depths of the garden. Buffy barely even noticed. She was too busy marveling.

The body of the garden was made with a shy, strong grace, the limbs of its trees shapely and white. It was not large, but it was handsome. And it had decked itself with candles, as if dressing up in its best for this assignation with her. There were some imperfections, wounds in the turf, deep gouges and what looked like old scars, and burn-marks that were more recent--blackened scorches on the green moss. There were ashes too, drifting through the air. Her heel skidded in them, and she wondered. But all in all, the old damage seemed mostly mended, and did not mar the whole. And it seemed to Buffy this should have been a serene place. But--

It was so alive! The candles clustered like mushrooms on the ground, hung from every tree, lined the garden walls. And the world they lit was frantic with life. Abuzz with motion, throbbing with frog-song, crickets pulsing in the shadows. The very air was swarming with insect-wings. Birds sang, and every leaf rustled. And there was color, color everywhere. Grass-blades were emerald, ripe grain pure gold; flowers enameled high-humped banks, bittersweet and heart's-ease, love-lies-bleeding and go-to-bed-at-noon, orchis satyrion--there were lots of those--and truelove clover. As she glanced upon them, their names spoke in her mind. Melancholy ancolie, floure-gentle and floramor, their cups and peacock-feather leaves spangled the grass; plucking-flowers and periwinkle, winding woodbine clocked with pensive pansies, ribands and banderoles of silken blossom, whole poesies of flowers. Illumination upon the earth, a writing in living colors. A jewel-box of flowers.

After the funereal wood without, it was paradise.

This must surely be the garden of desire.

Butterflies fluttered up before Buffy's hesitant feet, and a whirl of them spun around her, momentarily kissing her with a glitter of wings. She rested her hand on the crook of a tree's arm, bending to peer around it. Instants later she stumbled, and another tree caught her, broke her fall.

The stones that stitched the path were round and flat and they reflected the candle-flames brassily, a line of buttons.

Shadows swirled about her ankles, smooth and black as leather.

Water dripped. The stream plinked along, almost in piano-notes. "Who's there, who's there?" Buffy called. A voice called back, and she jumped, startled. Was it only the echo? She thought not. But when she looked, there was no one there.

Buffy sank down on a hummock of grass, patterned with shamrocks and forget-me-nots. Her feet were drying in their embroidered slippers, as was the hem of her clumsy nun's gown. Such a comfort was in her surroundings, the garden vigilant to keep her safe; no matter which way she looked, she could see high green-clad walls. And chivalrous trees, standing guard like gentlemen. Trees wore the willow for her, with hanging moss and ivy; trees blocked out the black midnight without. And the haze of candles, cupped in their hands, hid every scrap of sky. She plucked a button daisy, red as a rose. And everywhere was the hum of bees, busy as a mind lost in thought.

The bank of grass curved against her back, an enclosing arm; she leaned on its shoulder, uttered a deep sigh. Within reach of her arm, a scattering of pale rocks was visible in the grass. She laid her hand upon them thoughtlessly. They had fallen at random, but surely they lay in a pattern.

Of course! Suddenly she understood. Her hand still clasped the weathered stones. Fingers of rock, bones of stone. They projected out of the earth, cool under hers. So she fitted her own fingers into them, then bent and kissed their mossy knuckles. Then, looking on her other side, she found the corresponding tumble of stones; she patted them lovingly, linked her left hand through them, and leaned further back, resting in the embrace of the garden.

Buffy tipped her head back, brushed off her wimple and let it fall. Peace kissed her forehead, and a gentle breeze toyed with her hair.

The green-skirted walls had been built in the figure of a human body; the whole garden was made in a human shape. It had legs, hands, and Buffy lay upon its breast, as in another's arms. In another's heart. She had even stepped into it through the cleft between its legs, being born thereof, back there where the path forked around the oak tree and the bubbling spring, and now--at this sudden thought--she raised her head to look, clapped both hands over her mouth and burst out in a fit of the giggles. The spring, the spring was gushing out of the cleft. A regular fountain, it was. Yes--how funny was it, that the spring between the garden's legs was spraying eye-high on the greensward?

This was the 'garden in the blighted wood'. Had to be. Absolutely. Buffy jumped up, pulling out the gold amulet from her girdle: Hic Jacet Amor. Now that she had found the garden, next she had to find the seat of love, right? According to Memory's riddle. And then--she fisted the amulet, tossed it up and down, joggled it in the palm of her hand, doubtfully. Finally she measured it against her own thumb: longer than her thumb. "Oogh. And also, ouch. I gotta swallow this? But it doesn't even have 'Eat Me' written on it."

It was one hell of a pill.

It was also hot, and getting hotter. In almost the blink of an eye, Buffy was juggling it from hand to hand, and baby-pink blisters were rising on her palms. Wisps of steam rose from the surface of the amulet--the glowing-hot amulet. She began to pace in place--really, the garden was not very large--waiting for Love to show. "This is the place, so where is he?" She imagined him as being very courtly, with long hair and a fringe beard, and he would carry a bouquet of red roses and perhaps a box of chocolates. Her image of what a box of chocolates actually looked like was vague, and getting vaguer, but she couldn't shake the notion.

What else had Memory said? "Between hands folded in prayer, between the flesh at work and the soul at play. Well, duh." The amulet stung her fingers, so hot that she whimpered. But still, feverishly, she recited Memory's edict. "Between breasts, mind, ears, thighs, uh, and eyes-- Find where the love lies." What was she doing wrong? "Breasts, bone, blood, thighs," she chanted, "mind, mouth, ears, eyes--"

Suddenly she jumped in place, flipping up her heels in a manner most un-medieval. "I've got it!" And laying her hand upon her heart--for wasn't that where love dwelt?--she popped the red-hot amulet into her mouth.

Steam should have spurted. It was fiery gold, and she clapped both hands over her mouth, eyes watering, throat working, because to swallow would have been impossible. Sooner milk fish, or dip up the sea in a sieve, or--or climb a ladder of flying birds, oh, oh-- Yet around her, the garden waited; did the frenetic air hold its breath? She couldn't swallow. She reeled where she stood.

Behind her the gate creaked. She never heard. Stone groaned, loud against stone, and hoof-beats drummed on the stream-bed; though she did not look (she was in too much anguish) the gate had swung wide again. Out of the gateway, out of the cloven tree and gushing spring, a Knight coalesced from swarming shadows, advanced upon her.

Immensely tall he was and looming, armored all in black, mounted on a black stallion that arched its great neck and whinnied deep and long when it saw the garden--blew like a bugle, pawed the stones of the stream-bed, struck sparks with its steel-shod hoof. The Black Knight bore a lance. He reined in the stallion, couched his weapon: full six feet was it from butt to tip. Beyond, Buffy was only just alerted, catching sight of movement behind, above her. And the garden was so small that he was already almost upon her. Just as she glanced over her shoulder--at last!--the Knight lowered his lance and prodded her rudely. "O ho," he said.

She whirled and was frozen, the red-lipped girl, cheeks glowing with agony and golden hair tumbling over her face--a little creature as a mouse, crouching beneath the war-horse's hooves. In the sudden silence, the hot snort and champ of the stallion's mouth was over-loud, straining at the bit. Up went the Knight's lance, he sawed on the reins, reared his stallion and walked it, upon its hind-legs, toward his prey. His cruel spurs raked its flanks. As its flailing fore-hooves fell, he laughed.

She gulped, and Memory's bitter pill went down.

Buffy the vampire slayer rose up, swinging a wrathful fist. She slugged the stallion good and true. She felled it with a single blow: its head went up and back, its tail whipped around, and it folded groundward with dreamlike slowness, hit the turf so hard that it shook peacocks and nightingales screeching from the trees of the garden of desire.

The Black Knight had been flung sideways, to hit an ivied wall. His lance now lay under Buffy's heel. She stamped down hard on it, snapped it clean in two, kicked the haft aside and smiled with her blistered, swollen mouth. "You have to be Lavinius Luste," she said. "'Cause you are no gentleman."

Another stamp of her heel, and the broken tip of the lance bounced up chin-high; she caught it, reversed it, a stake. It was then she noticed the dazed Knight groping for something tucked into the collar of his gorget, as if trying to raise an amulet in a protective gesture against her.

She dropped the stake, fell to her knees next to him. "Angel. Oh Angel--" Why hadn't she recognized his armor? For his it was, black, black, and black, engraved with its anguished garden of self-torture. The heraldry of one who struggled with his soul, whose soul was a reproach and a burden; whose soul was a punishment rather than a prize. When she touched it, it almost numbed her fingertips. It was freezing cold.

"Angel. Oh no. Angel." She was babbling, cradling his limp hand against her breast, and now she shifted herself to take his head into her lap. "I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I thought you were this Lavenery Lug guy, I didn't mean to hit you right in the stallion, not now that I've remembered--" She covered his helmet in damp repentant kisses--the cold of it soothed her burned lips. "Let me get you out of this. I bet you can't breath in all that ironware, not that you have any breath anyway, but I can loosen your laces, here, here--" The leather laces snapped in her eager fingers. Still, panting a little from emotion, she managed to undo his right-hand vambrace, and began to tug it gently off. Meanwhile she kept talking, the explanation tumbling out.

"This is the garden of desire. Where the love is. I lost my memory, but she sent me here--Memory did--she said I had to get back in the good with her, she gave me that talisman. Said I had to remember what was most important to me. And I have. And I have. It's Spike."

Here she stopped, because she had at last managed to remove the glove of his armor. What she found was like a punch in the face.

She held his poor hand in hers, her head bent to see it better. He had tried feebly to prevent her from getting the vambrace off--and no wonder: his hand was almost black, the skin over the knuckles loose and rotting, the nails sloughing off, and the livid corruption extended up over his wrist as far as Buffy could see. She gasped, and then turned her face quickly aside; what she wanted was not to let him see tears of pity drop from her eyes.

He had been trying to speak too for some time, unable to make himself heard over her. Now he moved away from her, withdrew his hand and put it behind his back, where Buffy couldn't see it. And he averted his own face from hers; even concealed behind the mask of his armet, his whole attitude was one of dejection and repudiation. What was he saying? "--Buffy--love lies--"

"It does not," said Buffy fiercely. "Look, you've got to listen, I have to tell you--"

With insistent fingers, she began to fumble at his armor.

"Buffy!" He fended her off, finally thrust his maimed hand almost in her face. "Don't you understand? Our love lies buried. We can only mourn it."

"But I've remembered," said Buffy; the force of her words silenced him at last, he could only listen. "Remembered everything, Angel. About Spike. He took away the amulet you gave me, and wore it into the Hellmouth, and he's dead. He died. He died for me, but Angel, it's like he lifted a curse. He loved me, and I loved him. No, don't--you have to hear this. Spike set me free."

"Don't! Buffy, don't." She almost had his helm off. "Or--please, if you have to, blindfold yourself first."

"Going into this with eyes open," said Buffy, "like I was told to."

The helmet fell to the grass, rolled away. Buffy took in the extent of Angel's ruin, pulling his hands aside when he tried to hide his face; then kissed him.

"Buffy?"

"I love you. I do. Angel I can love you again."

"Buffy--Buffy--you bring me back to life--"

"I know we still can't sleep together, 'cause you've got a curse too. But . . . can you hold me? Just hold me tonight?" And as she took shelter in his arms, she said happily, "Spike set me free so I could love you."

They held each other for hours, till they settled together on the couch of the greensward, flowers and soft grass for their bed; Angel's grip on her was sometimes crushing, sometimes desperately tentative, never slackening for an instant. She stripped away all his armor piece by piece, keeping her eyes wide open, remembering Memory's command. The wounds upon him were terrible, bleeding still. But she had seen worse; tending Spike had taught her compassion, during that last dreadful year. Since then, she thought proudly, she had had some growing up to do, and she had done it. She kept her hold on Angel, never minding when he flinched in doubt. His injuries were self-inflicted. The armor was an instrument of torture: ice-cold, hideously heavy, barbed on the inside. Wouldn't be till she got it all off, that he could begin to heal.

She slept at last in Angel's arms, and when she woke he was another man.

To be continued.