Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy)
Page 15
“What I learned next was my worst fears justified. Apparently Persephone awoke on the Sapphire Throne, carrying spring into the mortal world, but Melinoë did not awake with her. Instead, the girl of shadows dissolved into a fine black powder, like granules of ebony sand. She poured and crumbled all around her mother’s lap, falling on the seat and the floor and staining the fabric of her mother’s chiton. It lay there, the beloved dust of our child, and Persephone was stricken with madness. She railed and wept and fell upon the ground and attempted to collect the ashes of Melinoë. Gathering them the best she could into a clay vessel, she then spent a barren and terrifying spring and summer, followed by a barely fruitful autumn, until she arrived back into the Underworld, holding the vessel with Melinoë’s remains. Here, I was witness to Persephone’s darkest mood, and my own despair, as we mourned our child and attempted to do anything and everything to bring her back to us. Seasons passed, then years. Persephone did not quite recover, and as she grieved she grew darker and more lifeless, while the world Above suffered her frugal springs, and the Underworld bore her desolate winters. At last—and here is where you will recognize the story—at last Persephone’s own mother Demeter and I devised together a means of alleviating her pain, and it involved the drinking of the water of Lethe. Only—we did not know that long before we came to this notion, Persephone herself had tried to cure her mind, and failed, and instead, as witnessed by your Lady Leonora, she apparently damaged herself completely.”
Percy regarded the dark God with thoughtful gravity. “Could it be possible that the water of Lethe acted differently upon her than it might upon other gods? For, according to your own description, she is the only immortal who also dies on a regular basis—and I am sorry, My Lord Hades, but I don’t understand how it is even possible. How is her death enacted? What is her death? And is it possible that because she is unique in that way, her drinking of Lethe had such a dire result?”
“It could be so,” Hades said. “Though it is not known how any other immortal would react to three deadly swallows of Lethe, for none had ever attempted it—at least not to my knowledge. However, I suspect—because Persephone is already subjected to absolute death and dissolution twice a year, she is somehow more vulnerable to such damage if it is done to her by any other means than the process of her divine function. The overdose of the water of Lethe must have destroyed her immortal soul. . . . And because her soul is the essence of sacrifice and compassion and resurrection, all such things are now broken, and the pattern of the world itself is damaged. Without her soul, Persephone is now a mockery of herself, a dark empty husk, hollow on the inside, with a place that cannot be filled no matter how many armies she commands to destroy the mortal world, or how many lives she takes.”
“Was it Melinoë’s death that brought about the creation of the Cobweb Bride?”
“What happened after Persephone drank the water of Lethe in secret, is this,” Hades said. “Demeter and I decided that the only way to heal Persephone was to make her forget our daughter, her very existence. But—not only was she to forget the child, but all three of us would, we who knew of her being and suffered the most. We were aware that some of our memories might inevitably return—yes, even those very memories of Melinoë we were trying to suppress—simply because of who we were and what divine functions we had to perform. But we were willing to make the sacrifice for the moment. The other gods meanwhile were instead to take a great inviolate Oath upon the sacred waters of the River Styx to never speak of her to us or to anyone else for as long as we remained without our memories. And in addition, Hecate was to take the jar containing Melinoë’s poor beloved ashes and she was to hide it from us and from the entire world, and to never speak of its location.
“Persephone meekly agreed to this arrangement—that alone should have been a warning to us that something was wrong with her, that she was willing to give in so quickly. Well, it was done, I am told, according to plan, and then Hecate assisted us and made sure that we drank the water of Lethe properly—just one sip to forget, and no more. First, Demeter accompanied Persephone from this Hall where we all came together originally to agree upon our plan, to her own Palace of the Sun. And there, on the Sapphire Throne, she made her daughter take one sip—all along without knowing that Persephone was practicing a subtle deception on us, that she was already changed and soulless, the damage done, and the excess lethal water would have no effect on her whatsoever.
“Apparently Persephone played her deception well, because Demeter was satisfied, and then proceeded to her own quarters in Ulpheo to drink her own portion, supervised in turn by Hecate. Next, Hecate left Demeter in a blink to come here, and she made sure I myself drank the one sip of water while seated on my Ivory Throne in Death’s Keep—this very same neutral place that is neither properly the mortal world nor the Underworld, nether Above, nor Below, but an interim Shadow. It was important that we do this in such order, and that I lose my memory while locked in my Death Aspect and not the other, in order that I re-learn the things of the world without compromising the natural course of death and mortality. For, had I forgotten Death while in the Underworld, things would have been dire indeed for the world Above. Besides, I would remember ‘Hades’ eventually, when the time came for Persephone to come to me in our natural cycle—or so we all thought.”
Hades sighed, and gave a bitter smile. He then shook his head with its raven hair, and again there was the illusion of his locks turning to serpents as they swept lightly.
“What happened then?” Percy asked gently.
“What happened next was not at all what we had expected. It turns out, Demeter without her memory is an innocent gullible fool who knows nothing of her divine function. Even worse, it turns out that Death without his memory is a grim idiot, who also has no notion of the Underworld, or of his true ability. Couple this with the fact that now Persephone is a soulless madwoman who has planned all of our ruin in advance, and what we have is a grisly hopeless mess not worthy even of you mortals much less gods!
“The moment Demeter and I lost our memories, Persephone apparently went directly to her mother, fetched her from Ulpheo, and did something to her, encasing her in bonds of twisted energy. What else was done, I have no notion, for I was, as you know, not ‘myself.’ That part remains a mystery—the details of what my poor broken love enacted to bind her own divine mother and those maidens, and to stop the course of death itself by creating the Cobweb Bride. She must have used intricate dark energies to separate Leonora from her death, and then attach that death to Demeter. This caused the grim event you all know as the cessation of death. For, through that one small thing the entire mechanism of life and death was halted. . . . Indeed, by creating the Cobweb Bride, Persephone halted the whole process of living movement—our complicated divine function.”
Percy listened to this retelling of what she thought she already knew. And suddenly a frightening new thought occurred to her. “If death has ceased, and all the dissolution that goes with it has paused, does it mean that life has ceased also?” Saying this, Percy stared with growing horror directly into the dark God’s eyes.
His eyes—they were tragic.
“Yes . . .” he replied softly. “Now at last you know the true extent of the damage to the world. Nothing can die, and nothing can be born. No new crops in the fields, no flowers, no new buds on trees, no new infants to the animals . . . or to you mortals. Not a single new living thing can come into this world now! All is halted! And you thought that not being able to slaughter your food animals, or boil your meat and cook your food was bad enough! Now you know that there can be no new food to replace what is already gone! That which was here at the last Harvest is still viable, for it carries the last of Persephone’s life energy. But after death has ceased, so has life.”
“No new children born to anyone . . .” whispered Percy, thinking of her own life and its possible joyful course with Beltain.
“I grieve for you, my beloved mortal Champion,” Ha
des said. “And no, you may not conceive with him, the man you love, not until the world returns to its proper course. And now the possibility that the world will ever be healed completely is very unlikely.”
“Wait, My Lord Hades! What do you mean?” Percy felt panic take over her mind, as the impossible notions rained down upon her like dark blows. “I thought that uniting the Cobweb Bride with her true death would at least begin to heal the world—as you had spoken earlier? But, oh, no . . . no, I understand at last. Life itself is broken.”
“Yes—as you indeed know at last,” Hades said. “If the Cobweb Bride accepts her fate, it will only resume death and dying. Mortals will indeed begin again to die as they always have, true. But it is only half of the divine function—my half. Persephone’s half still remains damaged, if not completely beyond repair. Persephone must come to me in love in order to create new life. But now—she comes to me in soulless desire, in disdainful hatred and despair, and I wait for her, terrified to the depths of my immortal being of what will become of us, and of the whole world, if—or when—she and I come together in union, whether it be here in the temporary place of Shadow or Below, in the Underworld.”
“Oh . . . My Lord!” Percy put her hands up to her mouth.
“The worst of it,” Hades continued, “is that even now I know she will come to me. That alone is inevitable, for, even broken, we are mated eternally. All I can do now is attempt to hold her back. For, she must not enter the Underworld—if she does—it is where we are—”
Hades grew silent.
“My Lord Hades,” Percy said. “If there is anything I can do now to help, please tell me what is to be done. I will try again to bring the Cobweb Bride here—”
“No,” he said. “Do not bother, not yet. She is not ready. Instead, you must do another thing for me—for Persephone and myself and the entire world—go to Hecate on my behalf. And bring to me the jar of ashes of my daughter Melinoë. It may be the only thing that could help now, the last resort.”
Percy did not pause even for an instant. “Yes,” she said, “I will do it, gladly! Only, how and where do I go? And how will I know Hecate?”
But the dark God smiled. “Fear not, for you know her already. Now, close your eyes, my Champion. And I will send you to her directly.”
Percy nodded, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
And the Hall of bones faded around her.
The moment that Percy was gone, a mortal man stepped forth from the shadows of one great ceiling-high bone column in the Hall, and he approached the dais of Death’s Ivory Throne, moving fearlessly through the cobwebs.
The black knight, Lord Beltain Chidair, had been listening to the entire exchange. For he had awakened in their guest boudoir in the D’Arvu villa in Tanathe just in time to see his beloved Percy step into the shadows and disappear, and he followed her immediately, and ended up here.
Beltain was going to call out to Percy and make himself known, and reproach her for leaving him in secret for no good reason, when he heard their conversation, the secrets of Persephone the Goddess and the whole sorrowful story of her loss and madness.
It stunned him, to learn most of this. Hopeless despair was now added to his worry on Percy’s behalf.
“So, mortal man,” Hades said to him, from his seat, glancing with narrowed eyes at the black knight. “You have been listening. Well, what have you learned?”
“Everything!” Beltain exclaimed in leashed anger, and stood before the Lord of the Underworld, ripping cobweb filaments away from himself in futile disdain.
Hades laughed. His deep voice rang in bitter hollow echoes in the infinite Hall. But there was no mirth in it, only darkness of the tomb.
“You have heard only what I have told her who is my Champion. Would it surprise you to know that I have spoken only in the language of her innocence and divulged just enough of the apex of the mountain, the tallest peak, to make her grasp the greater scheme? But know this—the bulk of the mountain reposes in the darkness of opaque mist, and while its tallest peak is visible, the roots of it go deep, the base of it is wide, and the foothills span the world. Thus, there is that much more of the deep darkness that had been left unsaid. Do you understand me, mortal man? For I speak to you now.”
Beltain listened, his slate-blue eyes unwavering upon the dark God.
“There is infinitely more I have not told her, nor could I ever speak of it to such as herself,” Hades continued. And there was a reflection of black flames licking in his pitch black eyes.
“But you can speak of it to me.” Beltain nodded at last, and a dark flush started to rise in him, for he understood the secret depth of the dark God, and his meaning.
“Yes.”
“Then tell me everything—all of it—that you have not told my Percy. Before I go after my love, before you send me after her, I must know.”
“Come closer,” said the dark God.
Beltain took a step forward, then another.
Hades regarded him with a suddenly lidded gaze, and he whispered, “Take my hand mortal man, touch it, so that you will know.”
Beltain reached forward and placed his large strong fingers upon the midnight skin of the god, upon his slim great fingers with their sharp claws.
Inferno of black fire . . . Ice shock and scalding flames . . . Agony and desire!
It seared him, and Beltain drew back involuntarily, letting go of the Lord of the Underworld and his utter hell. For Hades was burning, and at the same time he was encased in ice—the god was locked in a paradox of intensity, sharp like a razor’s edge and extreme.
Such was the dark God’s inner state of relentless, unrelieved, perfect desire.
And knowing it, Beltain felt himself burning also, burning in the dark flames and fierce in his own virile fury. For it came easy to him, this intensity, and it was his already, had he only known it. It took Hades’s touch to awaken him to what was already inside.
“Now you know my secret, mortal,” spoke the pitch-black God. “It is my nature and my curse and my infinite pleasure that I contain this eternal desire inside me, for all of my days, and all of my nights, as I wait for her who is my one true love. Only with her can this hell desire be quenched. And only for one night.”
“What?” Beltain stood before the God, reeling with his own desire, and in such agony of need that he was uncomprehending of what was being said.
“I have told your Percy of our union and the seasons, and how Persephone dies to bring the fruits of our union up Above into the mortal world. But now I tell you of what it is that happens between us, between Persephone and myself.
“The moment in which Persephone appears in the Underworld is the heart of autumn. I instinctively know the instant of her arrival, and I wait for her in the chamber, standing before the empty Black Throne until she materializes like rich pungent smoke from the sky—which in the Underworld is the nether side of the earth, and the roots of only the most ancient trees come to pierce it from above. Her scent arrives first—it is the breath of mortal air and distant extinct summer, a warmth of the fading sun, a crispness of an apple and the pungent juice of a pear, and the ruby seed of the pomegranate.
“My immortal heart begins to beat faster, as the ripe scent of her fills the dark chamber and turns to musk. Soon, her womanly shape is congealed from the tang of the well-plowed fallow earth and the rich smoke of burning wood, and she takes on physical form. When she is Above, Persephone is in her light Aspect, with her ruddy-gold hair and her blue eyes, her alabaster skin. But when she is Below, she is all exquisite darkness. Her hair deepens to bronze and then brown, with silken highlights of the fur of the fox and the bear and the bark of a maple, until it is near black, with only the shadow of rust remaining. Her skin darkens like sandalwood, and then sweetens to chestnut, and her eyes turn from blue sky to brown earth on a night illuminated by a harvest moon. She is like the wood and the forest floor, and she is beautiful, and she is desire itself given female form. . . .
“Thus, we spend our days Below, in talk or silence, in contemplation or laughter, always in near proximity of each other, indeed, close enough to touch, so close that our breaths mingle and we can see the dark pupils of our eyes. We pass time together and we wait. We are waiting for the culmination, for the one night our union is allowed to take place.
“I admit it is a long dreary season, even as it harbors the pending joy of our togetherness, as autumn deepens into winter, and we know with every fiber of our being, every pore, even as we burn together and apart, the slow approach of the Longest Night.”
“All these days and nights, you do not share a bed with her?” asked Beltain, regarding Hades in surprise.
“No,” the Lord of the Underworld replied. “For, we dare not—the same way that you dared not lie down with Percy this last night, and it took all your inner strength to abstain from her body. . . .”
“I—” Beltain looked away, frowning with intensity. “I wanted to—”
You wanted to plunge inside her and to move in sweet agony until you died. . . .
He was not sure if the dark God had spoken those words, or if it was a lustful echo of what was ringing inside his own mind.
“Why can you not be with your own wife?” the black knight asked then, to distract himself from the scalding flames inside. “How can the laws of the immortal world prevent you so cruelly from this rightful union?”
“Ah, but it is not the laws of the world, but we ourselves,” Hades said. “Persephone and I both know what happens between us, and that it can only happen once, and only in the deepest coldest season, else the intensity of our passion will rip the world asunder.