Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy)

by Vera Nazarian

  “What?” Percy stared in disbelief, while despair was suddenly all around, thick and palpable.

  “Look at me,” said the Lord of the Underworld. “I myself am fading from your world Above. Soon, Death, my mortal aspect will be no longer, and I will only be present Below in my darkest aspect.”

  “But how?”

  “Do you see the White Bridegroom? He is gone now, quenched by the unfulfilled, unrelieved dark stage of my divine function, swallowed up by my immortal need, darkened out of existence. Without the White Bridegroom, other mortals can still be put to rest. But the sacred light that is the White Bridegroom is required in order to re-ignite the complete cycle of death.”

  “Then there is nothing that can be done?”

  Hades fixed a stare of grim intensity upon Percy, and he said, “You can still do something. . . . My Champion, it is only you alone now who can put the Cobweb Bride to final rest. For you have glimpsed me as I have been once, a pure white light that no mortal might see without passing on—you are the only mortal who have seen me thus and have not died. You carry it inside you now, together with my power. And you can show her the White Bridegroom in the moment of passing.”

  “But—but what if I cannot do it properly?” Percy was numb with cold at the implications of what she had just heard. “What if I do it wrong?”

  “Then she will simply be put to rest as all the others. And the natural divine function that is the cycle of death in your mortal world will still be frozen in place, stuck because of a small cog stopping the great machine, with nothing ever to restart it—not even all the gods put together, myself included.”

  “How is that possible?” Percy exclaimed in sudden anger. “Holy Lord! What manner of bizarre, idiotic world order and Divine Scheme this is, that a single act of one puny mortal such as myself can determine the fate of the rest of the world?”

  At this Hades smiled. “Ah, but such is the intricacy, the complexity of the divine mystery that each act of each tiny being determines the direction and fortune of the many, and indeed the all. It is rather a perfect Divine Scheme actually, for it guarantees that nothing is ever insignificant, and everything has consequences. Every tiny motion of the tiniest mote in the infinite sea of celestial spheres and here on earth affects the rest of the universe. Some acts and motions are puny in the greater scheme of things and appear to be swallowed by the sheer size of the universe even though they ultimately affect the balance, while others—such as this one possible act set before you, Percy—might be the most important act of all. Make the choice, and you might restart death. Do nothing, and nothing will be the end result—for all.”

  “My mother once told me and Belle and Patty the story of Atlas who carried the Heavenly Sphere upon his shoulders,” Percy mused. “And there was the hero Hercules who briefly relieved him. If I might remind you, My Lord, that while you might be akin to Atlas, I am definitely not Hercules—”

  “I knew both Atlas and Hercules. And no, you’re not, and neither am I,” the dark God replied. “Indeed, you are yourself, and it makes you the best one to do what must be done.”

  “Since I am once again talking inside my own head, and all of this is not real, would you mind humoring me a bit more? Tell me where my mother is now. And my sisters, and my father! Where do the pieces of the world go when they fade and disappear?”

  “Where do you think? Ah, but you know already. . . . Everything has gone to me. It is here, Below.”

  “In the Underworld? But you have told me once, Lord Hades, that the Underworld is but a small place consisting of a house with seven rooms!”

  The gaze of his eyes was causing her to experience a new vertigo. Was it his hair or snakes undulating lightly around him? Percy was quickly losing the last of her sense of reference.

  “The Underworld was a small place, before. And now—now it has been changed by all the events of the mortal world. It holds more than you can imagine. And it holds less—for it too has been transformed by Persephone, my changed love.”

  Percy was blinking hard, for everything was starting to turn, and the already translucent form of Hades was fading rapidly into the universal grey.

  “Go and do what you must, My Champion,” he whispered. “The Cobweb Bride is your task now.”

  “But my mother and father are in the Underworld! And my sisters—”

  “Go!”

  Percy closed her eyes, feeling herself losing consciousness, and was cast out elsewhere.

  Chapter 14

  Percy came to, and saw the evening sky overhead, a tumultuous slate-blue haze through endless layers of overcast. Or maybe it was his eyes, the same color as the falling twilight. Everything was mixed up, her vision blurred. Beltain was holding her up to his chest, looking down at her with concern. She was lying in the snow, a few steps away from the tent, and she was so cold. . . .

  “Percy!” he said, seeing her stir and open her eyes. “Oh, Percy, you are back, my girl! What happened? You stepped out of the shadows and fell down immediately!”

  Percy sighed and put her hand up to Beltain’s rough cheek. “I am fine,” she said. “I was there—I saw him, Lord Hades.”

  “And?”

  Percy started to rise and he assisted her gently. They stood then approached the fire.

  “And . . . nothing much,” she replied, sitting down in the same spot she had sat before she left to see Lord Death. She glanced around them and saw that the Count and Countess D’Arvu had already retreated inside their tent to rest. Lady Leonora however remained outside, seated not too far from the fire where their servants were having a meal. She sat, solitary, motionless, staring into the flames, or possibly beyond them.

  Beltain noticed the direction of Percy’s gaze. “Tell me what was said? What did the dark God tell you?”

  And Percy selectively told him some of it, about Persephone and how Hades was weakened by her. Beltain’s expression became intense and somber.

  The fire crackled loudly, hissed, scattering sparks and one of the D’Arvu servants added kindling to it.

  They both looked in the direction of the noise. But in that same moment a man soundlessly emerged from the other side of the fire, coming from someplace in the camp.

  Percy looked up and the man was familiar—raven hair, intense features, dark eyes, demonic, in the flickering light of the flames.

  Fiomarre.

  “Good evening to you,” he said, standing over them.

  “Vlau’s brother,” said Beltain. “Good evening, though to be honest, I did not expect to see you for any reason, My Lord—or should I call you Marquis? Considering your brother’s crimes toward the Liguon Emperor, I am not certain what salutations apply—”

  “Yes, tragic, regrettable things have been done by my poor misguided brother, for all the right reasons,” said Ebrai Fiomarre. “May I join you?” And without waiting for an invitation he sat down near the fire across from them, not far from Leonora.

  “My Lady.” He nodded to her with courtly politeness but Leonora did not turn her head or acknowledge him. She was a frozen creature, and her death shadow, Percy saw, billowed nearby like the fire’s residue, an echo of vestigial smoke from the living flames.

  “So, what brings you to our fire, Lord Fiomarre?” Beltain watched him.

  Ebrai did not respond immediately. “I admit to a bit of curiosity—this girl—” and he glanced at Percy Ayren. “I would like to know if what the rumors say is true. Are you truly able to put the dead to rest? Or is it a clever trick?”

  “Why?” Percy was genuinely getting tired of this same question posed to her and phrased a dozen different ways, so she was rather blunt. “Why do you want to know this, My Lord? What would you have of me?”

  “For myself, nothing,” he replied, again after the briefest of pauses. “However, I do have someone in mind who might have need of your unusual services.”

  Lady Leonora flinched.

  “Who?” Percy was staring at him.

  Fiomarre ra
ised one brow. “For a girl from a small village, you are very direct,” he said. “Is it confidence or a bit of show? If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you, Percy?”

  “She may not mind, but I do.” Beltain interrupted, and his face was a controlled mask that was an indicator of his anger. “What do you want, Fiomarre? If you are such a man of court, I suggest you employ some of those courtly manners about now.”

  “Ah, forgive me.” Ebrai Fiomarre smiled, meeting Beltain’s gaze without blinking. “Let me start over. My Lady Percy, if I might inquire—”

  “And now Your Lordship is mocking me.” Percy bit her lips.

  “Not at all,” replied Ebrai. “For if you are truly able to do what you supposedly do, then you are indeed a Lady of the noblest rank imaginable. Allow me to explain. What I have in mind, noble Percy is a task that might change the course of this war entirely.”

  Beltain relaxed slightly, seeing the other man’s serious demeanor. “Go on.”

  And Fiomarre told them the truth. “Officially, in the Realm I am a dead man. Not many know this, especially here in this camp, but I have been working clandestinely on behalf of the Liguon Emperor, installed in a high position at the Sapphire Court of the Domain. In order to achieve my position near the Sovereign, and obtain a modicum of her trust, a complicated fabrication had to be perpetrated—indeed a process of many dire years, during which my family had slowly come under a semblance of disgrace, and then my Father, the real Marquis Micul Fiomarre, and I were publicly condemned as traitors by the Emperor of the Realm, sent to execution, and then discreetly exiled, so that we could flee into the arms of the enemy under the guise of political treachery. To achieve this end, the deception had to be impeccable—so much so that none of the members of our own family could be told the truth, not even my poor mother or my younger brother Vlau who decided that we had been unjustly condemned and martyred by the Emperor. No one expected such a wild act of retribution from my passionate but mild-mannered brother, but he proved us tragically wrong and killed the Emperor’s own daughter.”

  “So that is what happened!” Percy said, remembering the strange relationship between the Infanta and Vlau.

  “He has certainly changed his hatred into something else,” Beltain remarked. “Your brother Vlau is now a loyal servant of Claere Liguon, indeed, her shadow.”

  “I think that he—cares about her very deeply,” Percy said. “And I believe she cares about him.”

  “Thank you for telling me this,” Ebrai’s expression was hard to define. “I am somewhat relieved. But now, let me finish what must be said. As I mentioned, I have been at the Sovereign’s side for months now. And I have been in her confidence—somewhat, for I know it is in part an overall test of my loyalty. To that order she has given me the following task. I am to deliver to her a certain girl who can put the dead to rest—you, Percy.”

  Percy felt a wash of cold come over her. She went very still.

  “Yes,” Ebrai continued. “The Sovereign, Rumanar Avalais, wants you for her own, Percy, and to be honest I am not clear why, unless it might mean a mark of greater power for Her Brilliance to exercise your abilities selectively over the dead of her own choosing—to be used as a threat or ultimate punishment for insubordination. She expects me to bring you to her, alive. And here is where my own clandestine layer of orders comes in—most recently the Emperor commanded me that I am no longer to bide my time, but to strike as soon as the opportunity presents itself. However, to simply assassinate the Sovereign now that all death has ceased, will do us no good. We must have her dead completely, and out of the game. And thus, I wanted to employ your abilities, Percy. Once I have delivered you to her under a pretence of having captured you, I would be close enough to her to strike her a mortal blow, and you would finish her off with your powers—”

  “The Sovereign is immortal.” Percy interrupted his speech and single-handedly destroyed his carefully formulated perfect assassination plan.

  “What?” Ebrai sat back, stunned.

  “She is the Goddess Persephone and she cannot be killed.” With a tired sigh, Percy told him what they knew.

  Ebrai listened, and he did not say anything for a long time. At last he whispered in a dead voice, “Well, then . . . apparently all is lost.” And he simply got up, and left their fire, striding darkly into the night.

  Beltain and Percy stared in his wake. Even the D’Arvu servants cast discreet stares, and Lady Leonora raised her face and looked at Percy.

  There was silence and the ardor of flames.

  “I have . . . decided,” Leonora said softly, drawing in air for speech and crackling ice in her long unused lungs.

  “My Lady Leonora, what is it?” Percy looked at her gently.

  Leonora’s pale lovely face was bathed by the golden reflections of firelight. “Take me to Death’s side and let him have me for his Cobweb Bride!”

  “My Lady!” Percy got up from her place and approached Leonora. She crouched down and took Leonora’s cold hands in hers, feeling the death shadow respond by flickering wildly at her touch, like a candle flame in the wind.

  “I—I can feel you!” Leonora said in wonder. “It is true, for oh, I feel something when you hold my hands! When you touched me that first time, back in San Quellenne, I pretended to myself that it was nothing, but even then, I felt your strange power calling me—”

  “My Lady, I am afraid I can no longer take you to Lord Death. . . . But he has instructed me on how to do it properly—”

  “Then you put me to rest, Percy Ayren. But—do it so that I do not know. Can you do it without touching me? From a distance?”

  “Yes. . . .”

  “Then do it!” Leonora said, and if she had not been fixed in place by the cold, her form would have been trembling. “Only, please, not tonight. . . . Allow me to have this one final night to think. And then, after the dawn comes, do it any time, at any moment, and I shall be ready for you, nor shall I begrudge you the taking of my life.”

  “I am so sorry,” Percy looked into her eyes with compassion. “So truly sorry it has to be done—and I am not glad to do it, ever—but it must be done—”

  “Yes, I know now. The world is in desperate times, and if there is anything that can make things right, even a little, then it is to be done.” For the first time Leonora D’Arvu met Percy’s eyes unflinchingly. “Please do not tell my parents we have agreed to this. And you also, I beg you to speak nothing—” and she glanced at the servants who were watching. “Let my poor parents not torture themselves with the knowledge and the waiting. When it happens, it happens.”

  “I promise.” Percy released her hand, for the death shadow was swaying wildly, and the temptation to exercise death’s power was great even in that moment. . . .

  “Then it is decided and done.” Lady Leonora turned her face back to stare into the fire. “Thank you, Percy Ayren,” she said. “For your patience with me all these days, and for your mercy.”

  “And thank you, My Lady,” said Percy, “for the gift of your life.”

  When the dawn came, they were wakened by the activity in the camp, as the Goraque soldiers were getting ready to march to the aid of Letheburg.

  Percy awoke in the corner of the tent with a queasy feeling in her gut, for she had not eaten last night, having forgotten because of all the events, and now there was only the cold dawn. If not for the warm pressure of Beltain’s arms around her, she would have been shivering with cold. Snow had come down overnight, almost half a foot, and it weighted down the flimsy roof of the fabric tent, so that it hung low and bumped their heads.

  Percy crawled outside carefully so as not to wake anyone, and then went searching for some shrubbery to answer the call of nature. There had been no time to dig camp latrines, so most everyone had the same idea as her, and the hedgerows were busy with women and children and the elderly.

  When she got back, Beltain was waiting for her, looking worried that he had somehow slept through her getting up once more
, and she would now slip away from him again. At the sight of her, relief came to him like soothing balm, and he smiled at her with his eyes and his mouth.

  “Go on! Take care of Jack and yourself, Beltain,” she said, knowing his routine with the great warhorse.

  In reply, Beltain bent to her with a quick kiss on the side of her cheek that managed to graze her lips and send a pang of electricity through her. And then he went to groom his horse and take care of personal business.

  While waiting for him to return, Percy hastily chewed some hard bread and cheese and watched the camp being packed up. It was absolute chaos. About fifty feet away the refugees from San Quellenne were getting ready to move also, and everyone rushed about, overloaded donkeys unused to the cold stumbled in the snow, while tanned peasants swaddled in several layers of far-too-thin fabric looked miserable.

  Would they have been any more miserable, it occurred to Percy, had they simply stayed behind in their homeland and disappeared into the Underworld?

  She glanced about and saw formations of infantry lining up, mail-clad cavalry knights mounting on their armored horses, and hastily eaten dry meals gulped down at all the campfires, washed down by weak bark tea.

  Where are we going? she thought. Are these poor people going to be fighting the Trovadii? It will be slaughter. . . .

  And then she thought, Will I have strength enough to put down so many dead to their final rest, in order to give these living men a fighting chance?

  The next moment she saw Lady Leonora.

  Or I can simply take care of the Cobweb Bride. Do it now, swiftly. . . . If I take her—right now—will all those who are dead already fall like dominoes? With one single act that restarts death, would it put them all to rest? Or would it still require a great mass effort of will to kill them, each one by one—

  “Percy Ayren!”

  Lady Jelavie San Quellenne approached, wearing her full suit of armor, and her sword. Her helm was held in the crook of one arm, but her bronze-red head of hair was covered by a tightly-fitting coif hood of chain mail. The oval of her face that was bared to the elements was already reddened from the cold, and the expression of her brown eyes, sharp as daggers.