The Moonangel

What the mystic wanted was beyond the reach of mortal men. He might have acquired it from a demon, but the mystic knew demons couldn’t be trusted. He decided instead to summon an angel.

The man also knew that most angels, who spent their lives in the service and worship of their Maker, wouldn’t give him what he wanted, and this narrowed his options somewhat. In the end, he decided to try and summon the Moonangel.

It took a lot of searching and rifling through back-street shops and disreputable bazaars before the mystic finally obtained what he needed for this summoning. A wizened, barely-living merchant offered the man a vial of moondust, which he swore was genuine, although it was a difficult thing to prove. The man gave the merchant a year of his life in return. He considered this a bargain, provided that this vial was indeed moondust and not some common rock-dust from a desert. He left the merchant with a stern warning that he would return if the dust was anything other than advertised, although the old man joked in return that he probably wouldn’t be alive that long.

In order to summon the Moonangel, the dust had to be exposed to the moon’s light, exposed to the gaze of its parent, in a sense. The man cleared a space in the clutter on his attic floor and opened the skylight as far as it would go. The dust was sprinkled in a circle on the dry floorboards, some of it trickling through the cracks and holes but most sitting where it fell, waiting expectantly. The man prayed for wind, enough to blow away any clouds but not enough to disperse the dust. He waved his staff over the circle, spoke a few commanding words, and waited.

He wasn’t waiting long. The moon was wide awake that night and sent forth her cold fingers to probe into the earth’s dark places. A pool of light gathered on the attic’s floor and the dust glittered. The man’s breath caught in his throat as the dust began, slowly, to rise, drawn like the ocean tide. It swirled and it twisted and it took shape. And the Moonangel appeared.

‘Who has summoned me?’ the angel asked. It stepped into the room, towering over the man, filling the room, seeming, in fact, to fill all space with its presence. The mystic fell to his knees and hid his face, sensing that this creature could unmake him with a single touch.

The man answered the question in a quivering voice.

‘And what can I do for you?’ the angel asked. Its voice was like a tomb, cavernous and devoid of life. It was beautiful to look at, wings folded behind its back and face and body perfectly sculpted, but still it was awful to behold. Its entire form seemed to be in a state of flux, the dust of which its body was formed glittering in the pale light and shifting as if barely held together. The worst detail was the eyes, which were… well, not there. Where one would have expected to see those windows of the soul, there were instead doorways into nothing. The man found it very difficult to look at the angel’s face for that reason.

‘What can I do for you?’ it asked again.

The man answered. As he did so something like a smirk flickered momentarily on that white face.

The angel reached behind itself and withdrew a fist. That one massive fist seemed to travel across leagues to reach the mystic. When it opened inches from his face, there was a glass key nestled in the palm. His heart leapt and he reached for it.

‘This won’t be cheap,’ the angel warned, closing its hand again. ‘Are you prepared to give me what I ask for it?’

‘Anything,’ the man stammered.

‘Very well. I require the thing that is most valuable to you,’ the angel said.

Of course. A price steeper in value than the thing requested. What else would it ask for? The mystic took a step back.

‘I can’t,’ he said.

‘You will,’ said the angel. ‘It will be less valuable to you one day, and then you will wish you had given it to me in return for what you now seek.’

Still the man wavered.

'My life is eternal,' the angel warned. 'My patience is not.'

'Done,' the man cried. He covered his face, relieved and ashamed all at once. He held out his hand. 'Give it to me, please!'

The angel placed the key in the mystic's hand. It shrunk in the transfer, becoming small enough for the man to hold. It was cold in his grasp and seemed to draw the heat out of his hand on contact.

'You have seven years,' the angel told him. His body was already beginning to disintegrate, becoming dust and shadows. 'Seven years until I return. I will leave behind this clock to help you remember.'

When the mystic looked up from his prize, his visitor was gone. In his place he had left a clock, just as he said. Its face was divided into seven parts, one for each year the man had left. It seemed to him like he could see the bigger hand moving, even though its speed must have been infinitesimally slow to the naked eye.

Quickly, he turned and left the attic, desperate for warmth. The parting words of the angel seemed to hang in the room's still air like a sentence of death.

-

The years passed quickly. The man grew older, unnaturally old, or perhaps he had been unnaturally young to begin with. It was not unheard of for those of his profession. His hair grew white, his beard grew long, his robes grew frayed, and the wrinkles between his eyebrows deepened. Anyone looking upon him would have judged the weight of the world to be on his frail shoulders.

One day he summoned his daughter. She was a young woman of sixteen and she knew nothing of her father's visit from the Moonangel or the clock mounted in his attic. She knew nothing either of the glass key that her father wore around his neck on a silver chain even when he slept. Not that he slept much.