Neverwhere

it looked like some kind of decanter. Richard wondered if the bottle was made of glass; it refracted and reflected the candlelight so strangely. Perhaps it was some kind of crystal, or one huge diamond. It even made it seem that the wine inside was glowing, as if it were made of light.
The angel took the top off the crystal and poured an inch of the liquid inside it into a wine glass. It was a white wine, but a wine unlike any Richard had ever seen. It threw light around the caverns, like sunlight on a swimming pool.
Door and Richard sat around an age-blackened wooden table, on huge wooden chairs, and said nothing. «This wine,» said Islington, «is the last bottle of its kind. I was given a dozen bottles by one of your ancestors.»
It handed the glass to Door, and began to pour another inch of the glowing wine from the decanter into another glass. It did this reverently, almost lovingly, like a priest performing a ritual. «It was a welcome gift. This was, oh, thirty, forty thousand years ago. Quite a while ago, at any rate.» It passed the wine glass to Richard. «I suppose that you could accuse me of squandering something I should treasure,» it told them. «But I receive guests so rarely. And the way here is hard.»
«The Angelus . . . » murmured Door.
«You traveled here using the Angelus, yes. But that way works only once for each traveler.» The angel raised its glass high, staring at the light. «Drink it carefully,» it advised them. «It is most potent.» It sat down at the table, between Richard and Door. «When one tastes it,» it said, wistfully, «I like to imagine that one is actually tasting the sunlight of bygone days.» It held up its glass. «A toast: to former glories.»
«Former glories,» chorused Richard and Door. And then, a little warily, they tasted the wine, sipping it, not drinking.
«It’s amazing,» said Door.
«It really is,» said Richard. «I thought old wines turned to vinegar when they were exposed to air.»
The angel shook its head. «Not this one. It is all a matter of the type of grape and the place it was grown. This kind of grape, alas, perished when the vineyard vanished beneath the waves.»
«It’s magical,» said Door, sipping the liquid light. «I’ve never tasted anything like it.»
«And you never will again,» said Islington. «There is no more wine from Atlantis.»
Somewhere inside Richard a small, reasonable voice pointed out that there never was an Atlantis, and, thus emboldened, went on to state that there were no such things as angels, and that furthermore, most of his experiences of the last few days had been impossible. Richard ignored it. He was learning, awkwardly, to trust his instincts, and to realize that the simplest and most likely explanations for what he had seen and experienced recently were the ones that had been offered to him—no matter how unlikely they might seem. He opened his mouth and tasted the wine once more. It made him feel happy. It made him think of skies bigger and bluer than any he had ever seen, a golden sun hanging huge in the sky; everything simpler, everything younger than the world he knew.
There was a waterfall to the left of them; clear water ran down the rock and collected in the rock-pool. To the right of them was a door, set between two iron pillars: the door was made of polished flint set in a metal that was almost black.
«You really claim to be an angel?» Richard asked. «I mean, you’ve actually met God and everything?»
Islington smiled. «I claim nothing, Richard,» it said. «But I am an angel.»
«You honor us,» said Door.
«No. You do me much honor by coming here. Your father was a good man, Door, and a friend to me. I was deeply saddened by his death.»
«He said . . . in his journal . . . he said I should come to you. He said I could trust you.»
«I only hope that I can be worthy of that trust.» The angel sipped its wine. «London Below is the second city that I have cared for. The first sank beneath the waves, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I know what pain is, and loss. You have my sympathies. What would you like to know?»
Door paused. «My family . . . they were killed by Croup and Vandemar. But—who ordered it? I want . . . I want to know why .»
The angel nodded. «Many secrets find their way down to me,» it said. «Many rumors, and half-truths, and echoes.» Then it turned to Richard. «And you? What do you want, Richard Mayhew?»
Richard shrugged. «I want my life back. And my apartment. And my job.»
«That can happen,» said the angel.
«Yeah. Right,» said Richard flatly.
«Do you doubt me, Richard Mayhew?» asked the Angel Islington.
Richard looked into its eyes. They were a luminescent gray, eyes as old as the universe, eyes that had seen galaxies